Bear Me Away!
by ArmarielRoZita
Summary: Of the arrival and doings of Frodo and Bilbo Baggins in the Blessed Realm, and how they found peace and happiness. Revised.
1. Into the West

Part I: Into the West

"Are we almost there?" I asked Gandalf, looking up at the billowing sail, devoutly hoping the answer would be yes, because my shoulder was aching fiercely and I knew I would be sicker than sick in a small matter of hours. It was soon after supper and I had hardly been able to swallow more than a few bites. Everyone seemed too excited to notice.

Gandalf replied that he thought we should be there close to morning, maybe sooner if the wind picked up. It was raining and already getting dark, so I stumbled down below deck to our cabin to lie down. Bilbo followed me anxiously. I shucked off only my cloak and vest, fell into my bunk and pulled the covers up to my chin, rolling myself into a tight ball. Bilbo bent over me and pushed back a few strands of my damp hair, his bony hand shaking slightly.

"Should I call for Lord Elrond?" he said in a quavery voice. "You don't look well, my boy."

I didn't answer. I shut my eyes tight. I could hear the wind picking up outside. Good, maybe that meant it would blow us there sooner. I hoped he wasn't going to scold me about that little escapade of mine a couple of days before, when I had taken a crazy notion to go swimming in the sea with the dolphins, telling me, there now, he knew I'd be sick, and I hadn't listened, had I? Next time I would pay more heed, wouldn't I? But he said nothing about it. I shuddered and clutched at my pillow.

Maybe there wouldn't be a next time.

I heard Gandalf's footsteps on the stairs outside the cabin. They paused as he stopped to speak to someone. But I could not hear enough to understand what he was saying. My head was spinning.

"Bilbo," I whispered hoarsely, sitting up and throwing the blanket off, feeling as though my insides were about to turn out all at once, "help me to the privy, quick…"

I swung my feet to the floor, and only managed to fall right on my face as my knees buckled. Bilbo yanked me up and steered me toward the privy door. We didn't make it quite in time, however, and as if that weren't revolting enough, I heaved up my supper, such as it was, all over myself, the wind roaring in my ears louder than ever.

Gandalf came rushing in. It didn't take him long to figure what happened. He had a nose, after all. He twitched a blanket off the nearest bunk and thrust it at poor old Bilbo, saying, "Get those things off him and put this around him. I'll go get some water."

With that, he turned and flurried back where he came from and Bilbo helped me out of my clothes and wrapped the blanket around me. Then, in spite of the nasty mess I'd made of myself, he put his arm around me and held me close. I think he would have taken me on his lap like a little child if I had let him. I shivered and moaned, clutching my shoulder and leaning against him. He kissed my temple and told me it was all right, although I felt anything but all right. I felt like I did when I had the flu, only ten times worse. I could barely lift a finger. The room was whirling and I could hear a faint screeching in my ears like rusty hinges on a giant's coffin.

Gandalf came back with a basin of water and some rags, and between them they cleaned me off, got me into a fresh nightshirt and tucked me back into bed. My bones felt like rubber and my head was a whirlpool, and it felt as though an icicle were working its way through my left shoulder. Bilbo hovered over me. I could imagine how anguished and helpless he was feeling, but in my present condition I could not empathize much. I saw Gandalf gathering up the soiled things and I think I told him to pitch them overboard, but I don't know if he heard me or not. He hastily stuffed them into a sack, then hurried out again, saying he was going for Lord Elrond.

I lay flat on my back. My left hand felt like ice as Bilbo took it. I barely had the strength to open my eyes, so I left them closed. At least that way I couldn't see the ceiling whirling. My stomach and bowels cramped fiercely and I was too weak to cry out so I just groaned. This was the worst I could ever remember being.

"If we don't get there soon," I heard myself whisper, "this will be the end. The way I feel now, it would be a mercy."

"Don't talk so, Frodo-lad," Bilbo said tearfully. "If you go, then I go with you. There's nothing for me there if you're not there too."

"The storm is getting worse, isn't it," I said. I heard a horrid shriek and turned back on my side again, grabbing the cover and pulling it over my head, then clamping the pillow down over my ears.

"There's no storm, Frodo-lad," Bilbo said patting my good shoulder. "It's all in your head. It's just raining a bit, is all."

Then, remembering, he took my free hand and guided it to the pendant hanging around my neck. I clutched at it and the screeching died down considerably. I gasped for breath and allowed Bilbo to remove the pillow from my face. Then he took the star-glass, which I kept on the little table between our bunks for light in the night, and held it to me. I murmured the words and the beautiful light that began to emanate from it drove back the roaring in my head. I held the phial tightly in my free hand. It warmed the iciness and some of the feeling began to creep back into it.

Lord Elrond came in, bearing a cup in one hand and a steaming pot in the other. Gandalf followed, bearing two larger pots. Lord Elrond must have known I was sick before it even happened.

Sometimes I forgot I was among Elves.

I could smell that familiar green leafy smell and it soon drove out the nauseating stink from the room as they set the pots down on either side of my bunk. I thought it smelled like an apple orchard in late summer, shortly after a rain. Lord Elrond stooped down beside me and raised me up on one arm, without wasting any time or breath asking me how I felt. He held the cup to my lips telling me, "Drink this, Frodo. It will ease your pain and settle your stomach. Don't drink too fast, just sip it slowly."

I expected it to taste bad and my stomach clenched up again, but to my surprise, the flavor was not unpleasant. Slightly sour, but drinkable. I couldn't lift a hand to hold the cup so he held it for me, giving me soft and patient encouragement. Gradually I felt the churning in my stomach subside. The pain in my shoulder began to abate as well.

"More?" I said when I had drained the cup. Lord Elrond smiled ever so slightly.

"Not yet, Frodo," he said. "Just lie back and let it take effect. You'll feel better very soon. It won't cure you, but it will ease you until we reach our destination."

He kept his arm around me and I wanted to lean my head on his shoulder, but it seemed too much of a liberty. I found I was still clutching at my pendant, and he was looking at it. I felt ashamed. I had tried to give it back to him the other day, but he told me to keep it. Now I wanted to apologize to him…for what? For falling in love with his daughter? I'd never told him I had, of course, but he must have seen me gawking at her at Rivendell, unable to take my eyes off her whenever she floated into my sight as though all the stars in the heavens had taken the shape of a woman. What must he think? That I was wicked, presumptuous, conceited or just plain ridiculous…but if he thought any of those things, he gave no sign of it.

"I'm sorry," I murmured foolishly as the icicle melted away from my shoulder and the spinning in my head subsided.

"For what?" he said. "You've nothing to be ashamed of, Frodo. I know how it feels to love someone forever beyond your reach. Do not add shame to the pain you were already feeling."

I blushed hotly. Clearly there was no hiding some things from him! Now that I felt better, however, once more I was worried about him. "I'm sorry for taking her place on the ship, I meant," I said quickly, in a tone that might have been inaudible to a mortal, but he heard me just fine. I lowered my eyes and drew the covers over the pendant.

"Why should you feel sorry about that?" he said, almost sharply. Bilbo whispered to me that he had to use the privy now, and hurried out. I think he'd had to go badly, but had to be sure I was all right first.

"Well…" I said, turning the blanket this way and that. I wanted to ask him not to hate me. Which was stupid, I knew, but I wanted to say it. The brusqueness, probably unintentional, in his tone played on my frayed and feverish nerves. Surely he must hate me because I was here and his daughter was not, that he would never see her again, and I was in her place where I had no right to be and did not deserve to be, and was silly enough to adore her on top of everything else. Certainly he must be resenting me fiercely. I found myself clutching at his garment, or maybe it was at his long hair, and I felt him pry my fingers loose and take my hand in his.

That gesture surprised me, because I'd always been in awe of him and felt that he was a little cool and distant with me at times. I'd asked Gandalf long ago if Lord Elrond disliked me, and he said of course not. Lord Elrond just did not like to let himself get fond of mortals because we were so short-lived, he said. It would be difficult for me to understand why it was that those who were destined to live on and on had a hard time letting themselves get attached to those of us whose lives were just an eye-wink by comparison. I thought about this and considered that perhaps I should avoid trying to make him like me. Bad enough that his daughter had married a mortal and would die herself. He did not need any more attachments to mortals, surely.

The thing was, though: I _wanted_ him to like me. He had saved my life, and when someone saves your life you can hardly pass that off lightly, can you? Selfishly, I wanted his friendship. I felt somehow responsible for him, and I badly wanted to help him through his terrible loss, although I knew I never could. That went very hard with me, that I could really do nothing for him. I had an idea how Sam felt now, wanting so badly to help me and not being able. It was a wrenching feeling, and I ached for him and Sam both now. I couldn't do anything right, it seemed.

I wanted to tell him all this. I felt a half-crazy urge to ask him not to flee from my sight. Then I looked up at him and saw there was no need. He drew my head to his shoulder and I closed my eyes and rested against him.

"Stop it, Frodo," he said and I jerked my head up and looked at him guiltily. My stomach lurched a bit. He chuckled and pulled me back to his shoulder. "I mean, stop all that eating your heart out about your so-called failure. Isn't it time to lay all that to rest?"

How did he know about that? I had never told him. I ducked my head and involuntarily began chewing on a fingernail, an old habit I'd had since childhood. He gently moved my hand away.

"I would if I could," I sighed. "But…well, the thing is…I just feel as though I do not deserve to be here. That no one knows…well. I…"

"Frodo-lad," Bilbo said and I started to see he had returned; I hadn't heard him approach, "you listen to Lord Elrond, and you listen good. I want you to stop all this nonsense at once. I won't have it any more, you hear me? Don't you realize that the Elves have never allowed a mortal to enter the Blessed Realm before in the entire history of the world? Do you think for a single minute that they would allow anyone they considered unworthy across its borders? Do not tell me you are cheeky enough to set your own wisdom above the oldest and wisest race on the planet, or I'll shake some sense into you, my dear boy. You only think you're sick now. You'll catch it hot and heavy if I hear one more word about how you don't deserve to be there; do I make myself clear?"

"Listen to your uncle," Lord Elrond was smiling now. "And to me. I do understand, believe it or not. Was I or was I not the one who took Isildur into Mt. Doom to destroy the Ring?"

I winced at the mention of It. No one had spoken of It to me in a very long time, it seemed. I nodded.

"You want to know about failure, Frodo?" he said. "I could not make him let it go. I should have tried to wrench it from him, or push him in, or throw both of us into the fire. For ages I felt I had failed. I had led a battle against the forces of evil. Surely I could have made one man destroy a Ring? But I did not. I stood by and allowed him to keep it when I should have done something. And I did nothing. I could do nothing, and do you know why? Because the Ring paralyzed my will as it paralyzed his, and yours. If you think you were unable to do what was entrusted to you, I know all about it. And how long have I lived with that knowledge? Count yourself fortunate that you will not be living with it as long as I have. But I've come to terms with it, because it was either that or I would be good for nothing but to brood on my 'failure.' You accomplished far more than I did, Frodo. You are small, you are mortal, you are young, comparatively. All the odds were against you, and yet you surmounted them all. Yes, you had help, but you would not have had it if you had not earned it. Such devotion as Sam's did not come from a vacuum. I have never seen anything quite like it before, and do not expect to see the like again. I have observed much of him, and I can tell you, he could never have cared so deeply about you if you had not done much to deserve it. You can lay any doubts to rest. You brought about a victory of which I could only dream."

Bilbo nodded emphatically. I blinked back tears, and felt some of the tension melt from my body.

"I have a suspicion," Lord Elrond said, "that you are suffering from wounded pride, my friend, of which I also know a little something. Perhaps you expected to come home a hero, and could not content yourself with being merely an instrument of good?"

"I did not expect to come home at all," I said. "Often I've wished that I had not. As for heroes, Sam was the true hero. He really did it all. And I…I put him through so much. He went through so much misery and grief on my account. That's why I left, really. Well, there were other reasons, but that was the main one, I think. I could not let him watch me die. Because I would have, if I had not gone."

"It was the biggest favor you could have done him," Lord Elrond said. "To watch someone you love die can be harder than dying yourself. As a healer, I have seen both more times than I care to remember."

"I wonder if he has got home yet," I murmured after a long moment. "Poor old Sam. I should never have written that poem…or, at least not copied it into the Red Book."

"What poem?"

"Oh…I wrote a poem a few months ago—'The Sea-Bell,' it was called. It came from a dream I had several times over the past two years. I dreamt that I had passed into the West, and no one would speak to me, and so I grew old and mad, and still all ignored me until I left and became a…a wraith. I had almost forgotten I wrote the thing, or I think I would have torn it out. I pray he never sees it, but I'm afraid he will."

"Can you remember any of it?" Lord Elrond looked genuinely interested, which surprised me.

I thought for a moment. Then I softly recited:

_I walked by the sea, and there came to me,__  
__as a star-beam on the wet sand,__  
__a white shell like a sea-bell;__  
__trembling it lay in my wet hand.__  
__In my fingers shaken I heard waken__  
__a ding within, by a harbour bar__  
__a buoy swinging, a call ringing__  
__over endless seas, faint now and far._

_Then I saw a boat silently float__  
__on the night-tide, empty and grey.__  
__'It is later than late! Why do we wait?'__  
__I leapt in and cried: 'Bear me away!'_

_It bore me away, wetted with spray,__  
__wrapped in a mist, wound in a sleep,__  
__to a forgotten strand in a strange land.__  
__In the twilight beyond the deep__  
__I heard a sea-bell swing in the swell,__  
__dinging, dinging, and the breakers roar__  
__on the hidden teeth of a perilous reef;__  
__and at last I came to a long shore.__  
__White it glimmered, and the sea shimmered__  
__with star-mirrors in a silver net;__  
__cliffs of stone pale as ruel-bone__  
__in the moon-foam were gleaming wet.__  
__Glittering sand slid through my hand,__  
__dust of pearl and jewel-grist,__  
__trumpets of opal, roses of coral,__  
__flutes of green and amethyst.__  
__But under cliff-eaves there were glooming caves,__  
__weed-curtained, dark and grey;__  
__a cold air stirred in my hair,__  
__and the light waned, as I hurried away…*_

"That's just the beginning," I said as I saw him looking at me in utter astonishment. I blushed. I was rather proud of the poem when I first wrote it. I'd written a Lament for Gandalf long before, but it wasn't very good, I thought. I had not known I could write poetry at all. But I didn't know how Sam would take this one. I should have torn it out and brought it with me.

"Frodo, I had no idea you had such strange and wonderful things inside of you," Lord Elrond finally said as Bilbo nodded awe-stricken. "Although perhaps I should have known it. Why would you not want him to read anything so beautiful?"

"It gets…rather morbid," I said, my voice sounding hoarse all of a sudden. "It may frighten him."

"I think not," Elrond said and he was fairly glowing. "I hope you will be inspired to write more such things, when you make your home. And I've a sneaking feeling you did want him to see it, deep down."

"Maybe it won't be so bad. Maybe he'll just think it's a pretty bit of foolishness," I tried to reassure myself with a little shrug, wondering if Lord Elrond knew more about me than I did. "Or he won't think I wrote it. Maybe he'll think I just read it somewhere and took a fancy to it, and copied it down for him. I hope so, anyway."

The look on Lord Elrond's face was something to see. His lustrous eyes softened to a stellar glow, and hid nothing. Their depths seemed ageless, dimensional, encompassing the vastness of history and memory. They absorbed me, owned me, almost against their will. Abashed, I looked away.

He needed no more mortal attachments perhaps, but obviously, he had one whether he wanted it or not. And I was at fault, without consciously trying. Just by wanting to be, I suppose.

"Sir," I said after several minutes, looking up at him, "you _will_ see her again, someday. I know it."

He looked sharply down at me and I wondered if I had said the right thing. I had not meant to say it exactly. It just came out in my voice. It was as if someone else had spoken through me. I wanted to tell him about when I was a boy and had been deathly ill, and I had seen my parents—really seen them, it was no dream—and they had sent me back, saying I had a special mission to perform—how could they have known?

But before I could say it, I yawned hugely, and before I knew it I was asleep. I slept fitfully, waking from time to time hearing strange voices, ugly singing, small creatures fleeing and skittering from my footsteps; black snowflakes, empty shells crawling. Horns stuck into my head with the sharp ends pointed at my brain. Fingers lying on the ground with the nails gnawed to nothing. Ropes, snakes, bloody waves, teeth…

_Black came a cloud as a night-shroud.__  
__Like a dark mole groping I went,__  
__to the ground falling, on my hands crawling__  
__with eyes blind and my back bent.__  
__I crept to a wood: silent it stood__  
__in its dead leaves, bare were its boughs.__  
__There must I sit, wandering in wit,__  
__while owls snored in their hollow house…._

I awoke shuddering, the phial lying on the floor, and Lord Elrond was still there; he brought me a little more of the drink and put the star-glass on the little table to keep back the evil dreams. I slept much better then. But suddenly I was awakened by running footsteps on the stairs, and a commotion above, a humming like that of a massive hive. Gandalf burst through the door, white and gleaming like a sail in the moonlight.

"We're in sight of the harbour!" he said. "Frodo, how are you now?" he asked as he saw me sit up in bed.

"Better," I said. "I want to go up and see!" I tried to swing my legs around to the side of the bunk again, but Elrond held me down firmly. Bilbo popped out of the other bunk, saying, "Sticklebats!"

"One moment, my lad," Elrond laughed a little. He found my robe lying on a chair and helped me into it, then snatched my cloak from the peg on which it hung and wrapped that around me. He fetched Bilbo's robe and cloak as well and handed them to him, then lifted me into his arms and carried me to the doorway. Bilbo followed, pulling up his breeches, then putting his hood up over his head and indicating for me to do the same. Gandalf offered to carry him but he wasn't having any, he might be old but he wasn't dead yet, he said and scuttled along after us. So Gandalf brought up the rear, and up the stairs we went to the deck.

The rain had slackened, and it was getting on for dawn, dim and grey. It was cold, but the wind had died down to a light breeze. A few Elves looked with concern at us, but most were too excited to take real notice.

I couldn't see much, just something pale and misty far ahead, as though a fragment of the moon had fallen into the sea. I strained my eyes but all I could see was grey fog and rain. Everyone chattered like a tree full of birds over the rush and flow of the waves beneath us, but grew quiet after a few minutes. Then as the sky grew a bit lighter, I saw what appeared to be a white gull flying toward us.

I knew we were too far from the shore for a gull to be flying toward our ship, and this one appeared larger than the gulls I remembered. I gazed in wonder and delight as it wheeled gracefully and luminously in the dim sky, then headed straight toward us. I was about to tell Lord Elrond to watch out, when it fluttered its great snowy wings and landed on the ship's rail. I saw it indeed was no gull, for gulls have webbed feet, and this one had claws of bright gold. It was like a dove, but larger, and its neck was longer, rather like a swan's, but the beak was different and it was too small for a swan, and swans are freshwater birds. Its tail was plumy, its eyes gold and glittering, and a starry light shimmered from all its feathers.

Everyone exclaimed in soft wonder as the beautiful bird descended from the rail to the deck. It seemed to be looking right at me and Elrond, and then, even as I gazed, a dazzling light shot up from it, and then in its place stood a tall, radiant woman in white with long dark hair, so like to Lady Arwen that I think I must have swooned, because the next thing I knew someone had taken me from Lord Elrond's arms and he had gone to the woman and was embracing her. I could see she was taller than Lady Arwen, her hair more wavy.

I supposed it was Gandalf who had taken me, but as I looked up to see his reaction to the appearance of the woman, I was startled to see it was Lady Galadriel who was holding me.

There are _some_ things to be said for being sick.

"She is his mother," she whispered to me, her face transfigured into ineffable beauty.

"Elwing?" I said disbelieving. She nodded. Her abundant golden hair tickled my cheek so that I "accidentally" let my hood fall away, and her heaven-blue eyes glittered with happy tears in the ship's lantern-light. I held onto her with one arm, telling myself to enjoy this moment to the fullest because it would never come to me again. Oddly enough I felt sleepy once more; it must have been Lord Elrond's drink taking effect, and I struggled to stay awake, for I didn't want to sleep through our arrival.

And I saw I was still clutching my glass, no longer glowing, but she did not seem to notice. I looked at Lord Elrond and his mother again, still embracing, and a glimmer of joy started within me, and grew and grew until I felt like a larger version of the phial, radiating out into the night as the rain turned all silvery and then I could see gleaming whiteness in the distance more clearly and heard a faint voice of singing over the waves. Cheering broke out on the deck.

I felt they were singing to me. A sweet green fragrance slowly unfurled itself into the night, into the blossoming of the dawn. I could hear the Island awaken. I heard shuffling feet and opening doors, the lighting of candles, bath-water splashing, children yawning, a chiming of bells from lofty towers. They were awaiting me.

"Sam," I whispered to the glass above the din, "we are here. We're safe. I'm home."

And as if I had spoken the usual charm to light the glass, it began to glow once more, and it felt warm indeed in my frosty hand.

***TBC***

*You can read the complete poem here, along with some notes.

The idea of the white bird is from Shirebound.


	2. A Strange Journey

Part II: A Strange Journey

_We're here!_

The voice startled me awake. I had not meant to go to sleep, but there was no wind and the ship was just drifting with the tide, and we'd been still at least two leagues from the shore, and there was the drug and my restless night all acting upon me. The Lady was still holding me. Evidently she had tucked my glass into the pocket of my nightshirt so I shouldn't drop it, and had pulled my hood back over my head. The sun was still low but the sky was much lighter overhead and it had stopped raining. So I could not have been asleep for very long, probably a quarter of an hour or so. I smiled to see that Bilbo had finally suffered himself to be lifted by Gandalf so he could see above the fog that still hung low on the water.

Quite reluctantly, I must confess, I told the Lady she could set me down if she wanted to go over and meet her old friend, but she said she did not want to interrupt the reunion of Lord Elrond and his mother, and she could wait.

I can't say I was sorry.

I could hear the whinnying and pawing of horses behind me, and saw that Shadowfax and Lady Galadriel's lovely white palfrey, Maegfán, had been brought up. They had spent several days in close quarters and had obviously grown quite fond of each other. I smiled to see the great silver stallion reach over and nuzzle Maegfán's snowy mane, while she demurely pretended not to notice, her long eyelashes cast down. Gandalf mounted Shadowfax and took Bilbo up with him, and Lady Galadriel did likewise with me on the palfrey.

I could hear the bells in the harbour now…

And clearly see the white Tower rising in the mist….

And the gulls screaming out as they wheeled in ecstatic circles, flocks upon flocks of them….

I was glad of my cloak, surreptitiously tugging the hood down over my eyes, feeling shy of the cheering throng that stood at the harbour. I thought perhaps they'd take me for an Elf-child if they couldn't see my feet, so I tucked them up out of sight under my cloak.

Bilbo had no such qualms, however. He sat right there in front of Gandalf, beaming and looking all around, blowing a kiss or two to the crowd. Maegfán glanced over at Shadowfax when his attention was distracted from her by the noise.

But it seems I could do nothing right, even enter my new home in grand style. Due to the combination of the excitement and the wearing off of the drug, I began to grow dizzy again, everything whirling before me in a funnel of light, the pain creeping back into my shoulder….

The next thing I knew, I was lying on a bed in a small chamber lit by candles and frosty-looking windows, Bilbo hovering close by, and Gandalf, and another Lady whose identity I did not know, but had a shining presence such as I had never seen even in an Elf. My head was still spinning and my shoulder once again was being pierced by an icicle, and I groaned, and then I was lifted and carried into another room, where my garment was removed and I was washed in a warm bath by Gandalf and Bilbo, barely aware of what was happening. Then they dried me off and put me into a white robe someone had brought in—it was made for a child, obviously, but was still a little too long for me—murmuring soothing and reassuring things to me the while. Then Gandalf gently bore me into yet another, much larger room and laid on what appeared to my blurry eyes to be a high pallet in the middle. This room was also lit with candles, lots and lots of them, and there were people standing all around—at least, they appeared to be people, but they emanated a soft light as though they were candles in human form. And there were windows all around, very high pointed ones, set with bevelled crystal in intricate patterns on which the morning sunlight played with scintillating effects, setting sparks of a dozen colors, and there was a round window in the ceiling, like a giant crystal rose. I could see and smell flowers also.

Torches were lit at my head and feet. The pallet was comfortable, if a little hard, and there was a silk pillow at my head and the room was warm, but I felt strange, as though I were being prepared for burial. My anxiety must have showed, for the shining Lady stepped forward and touched my cheek and forehead with a soft, cool hand. She wore a white robe like mine, with silver embroidery, but more thin and silky looking, and underneath she wore a gown of silver-grey. I hoped my robe was less transparent than hers, and I glanced down and felt relieved to see that it was.

She took my right hand and stroked it, telling me she would let no harm befall me. I had never heard such a melodious and soothing voice, and I could see her hair, long and silvery-white in color like a flying cloud, bound with a simple coronet that held it back from her unbearably beautiful face. Then I felt someone take my icy left hand and I looked up and gasped to see it was the Lady Elwing, wearing the same sort of robe over her white gown. Her dark hair was also held back with the same sort of coronet, and the candle-flames and torch-light cast dancing gold-copper glints on its abundant waves. Her eyes were dark stars in the pale heaven of her face.

I would find later that she was a priestess in this, the Temple of Illùvatar.

I could not hear their words above the roaring that started in my head once more. But before I knew it, they began to sing, or chant, softly at first, but then as their voices grew louder, the others in the room echoed their music, in exquisite voices, echoing through the large, lofty chamber, and gradually the roaring subsided and the room grew ever brighter, and a bell tolled deeply in the distance. I felt cool fingers massage my brow and caress my wet hair. My body seemed to grow lighter as I lay upon the…bier? and before long I felt as though I were floating….

I was lying on my back in a little boat, and it seems that it drifted through a dazzle of light into a dim tunnel. I was about to protest that I didn't like tunnels, when I looked up and realized I was not alone. Lady Elwing sat in the prow of the little boat, and my head was in her lap. Soon I grew a little calmer, my breathing less labored. I saw my tunnel was more like a culvert, the walls a strange light reddish brown, glowing faintly, and the water we floated in was dark-red like blood. Lady Elwing took both my hands in hers, and told me she would let no harm befall me.

"Why are we floating in blood," I think I asked her, and she said, Shh, just lie still, barely above a whisper. I thought of asking if we were inside a snake, then I heard strange noises echoing in the distance, and wanted to sit up, but when I tried I was overcome with dizziness once more and she told me I must trust her. But it is hard to trust when you are floating in blood. The air felt close and dank and foul. Then we came to what appeared to be a fork in the tunnel and she spoke something in Elvish, then asked me where should we go, left or right, and I had no idea but I said, Left, without knowing why. I heard a rushing of the water, or blood, or whatever it was, and we descended over some rapids and I heard a fearful thumping, rather like a giant slow heartbeat. Now we were inside some sort of dark chamber with very high walls, which seemed to be throbbing and dripping blood and glowing redly. I was sure I was dreaming, but she kept hold of my hands and told me everything would be all right, and we drifted into another tunnel, and I heard hideous voices therein, the way I sometimes heard in my nightmares. And I saw what clearly were eyes, looking right at me balefully in the darkness, and I was terrified and tried to sit up. I heard jeering voices, taunting me, cursing me, calling me by name, saying obscene and unthinkable things, and the Lady's arm went around me.

"What are they?" I whispered.

"They are your illness," she replied. I wasn't sure I heard her right so I twisted my head around and looked up at her. "You must defy them, Frodo. Do not let them clog your path. Otherwise they will annihilate and absorb you, and you must not allow it."

I wasn't sure what to say to them in defiance and was about to ask her, but that seemed truly silly. Then I remembered, long ago, as I sat upon a white horse by a rushing ford, defying the Ringwraiths, and thought perhaps I should say what I said to them, but it hardly seemed appropriate. At least, not in full.

So I said, "You shall never have me!" wishing I had my sword with me, but I had left that with Sam. It sounded ridiculous even as I said it, but no one laughed, and I put my hand down in the water and splashed it at them, as hard as I could in my weakened state, shouting, "Go back! In the name of all the Valar, I defy you! I hate you!" Then I was overcome by giddiness, and when my vision cleared, I saw I was lying in Lady Elwing's lap once more, and she was stroking my hair.

"Are they gone?" I asked, and she said, "They are. You did well," with a smile. And I smiled also.

We floated on in the darkness, and the wailing voices grew fainter. Then she said, "We are about to pass through fire. You will feel a burning for a moment, but it will not harm you. There is another way we can go to avoid it, but it will take much longer and your healing will not be as complete. Do you wish to take the long way or pass through the flame?"

I thought for a minute. The pain in my shoulder was intense; in fact, it was much worse than before. The sooner it was over and done with, the better. So I said, "The flame…please." She smiled at my politeness, laid her hand on my good shoulder and spoke or sang more words I did not understand, and the boat drifted through another fork in the tunnel. I clutched tightly at her hand and saw ahead of me a burning redness, and I almost said, "I've changed my mind, let's take the long way," as I felt heat of unbearable intensity already, in the water below me. I wondered how long a "moment" was by Elf reckoning, and decided any moment of burning was far too long, but she wrapped both arms around me tightly and said once more that she would let no harm befall me. She said it would be as the birth-pains of a mother, but for far less duration and even more quickly forgotten. I asked her if she would feel it with me, and she said she would, and the boat drifted into the flame.

I wondered if anyone heard my shriek besides her, but the burning lasted for the space of a second, I'm sure. Then I felt it no more. I looked at her and saw her smile. Then she made me lie down again and put my head in her lap. I needed no persuading. I asked her if the worst was over and she said there was one more trial, but she believed I could endure it. We floated into a chamber of utter blackness, and I barely refrained from grabbing her in a choking clutch. No sound at all issued here, no light, no smell, nothing except an oppressive humidity. Just that complete and utter nothingness. Why had I not chosen the easier way? Even the burning had been preferable to this. I could not see even the soft light the Lady emitted. Frantically I fumbled for my glass, but found that I did not have it, nor had I my pendant; they had taken both from me, how could they do it? I would go mad if this went on much longer….

I had been through this before, actually. But when?

But just as I thought I could take no more, I beheld a faint white light ahead of us, and I sat up again. I could hear a soft voice of singing in the distance, very like the singing I had heard in the chamber. Indeed, it was the same singing. I could see glowing figures ahead standing in the light. Soon we had reached the mouth of the tunnel and there was light all around, crystal clear and warm and fresh. The water glittered all around us, cascading in a dozen falls that caught the sunlight in bucketfuls of diamonds, splashing on me and the Lady in sweet coolness. I saw people standing upon the water, singing, and the boat moved ever faster, and I saw trees of silver and gold above me, an endless forest of them, stars clinging to their branches, lotus blossoms floating on the stream around us. My head was spinning once more, but my pain had abated dramatically. Then I felt a tremendous explosion in my head, as though I were inside a firework, and I was soaring, soaring through the white air at blinding speed until I knew no more….

And when I came to this time, I was lying in another bed, and there was Bilbo once more by my side.

"Boat, my aunt Fannie!" Bilbo said. He sat cross-legged on the bed beside me, looking quite at home, a cup of tea in one hand. "You were in no blasted boat, my dear boy. You must have been dreaming. The whole time you were lying on that-whatever you want to call it with all those Elves or whatever singing all around in the candle-light. At one point you fetched out this ungodly shriek and only Gandalf kept me from storming in there and demanding what in the name of Eru they were doing to you! When they finally did let me in, I thought you were dead for a moment there, and it gave me such a turn that I thought I was going to fall right over in my tracks. Then we fetched you here, Lord Elrond explaining to me some kind of fol-de-rol about a, a 'purification,' whatever that means. Never heard of such piffle. But at least, now you look, well, you still look like death warmed over, to put it politely, but it's a vast improvement over how you were looking before, so I suppose I can't fault their methods too harshly."

I laughed, glancing all about. The room had one wall completely lined with bookshelves, and the opposite "wall" consisted only of alabaster columns set with moonstones and gold filigree. Outside was a wide terrace overlooking the most magnificent garden I had ever seen-truly, it made Rivendell look like Mordor. I lay in a bed large enough for four hobbits, with thick mattresses sheeted in colored silk, several fat pillows, and a beautifully embroidered thick comforter lying over me. A few potted plants stood about the floor, along with some gorgeously worked rugs. I could hear birds singing, their notes echoing throughout the trees, and some tubular chimes hung in the pointed arches between the columns, tinkling softly in the breeze. A delicious fragrance wafted into the room. I was informed that I had been there less than a day.

"I didn't know you had an aunt Fannie," I said, sitting up shakily. I felt wonderfully lightheaded and my shoulder…why, there was no pain at all. My left hand was as warm as the right.

"What?" Bilbo looked at me as though I'd said something in Dwarvish.

"Never mind," I laughed again, and Gandalf came in with Elrond just then. I smiled radiantly at them.

"How is our patient now?" Lord Elrond asked me smiling back, but I didn't answer for staring at Gandalf. He had shaved his beard, obviously, and his hair had acquired several black streaks. And I can swear some of the lines had disappeared from his face. Yet he was still recognizable.

"Gandalf," I gasped, "_what_ have you done to yourself?"

"That's just what _I _was about to say," Bilbo said. "You didn't come back from the dead AGAIN, did you? Isn't once enough? If you are trying to paint your hair to look like an Elf, I can tell you here and now that it's a big mistake. You look like one of those…striped ponies, whatever they're called, that I saw in one of Lord Elrond's books."

Before Gandalf could reply, there was a tap at the door, and another Lady entered smiling, very like to the Lady Galadriel but not nearly so tall, more slender and delicate looking, clad in a dainty pale blue gown that matched her eyes. And I could see three more Ladies hanging back in the hallway, two of whom I knew already, and one other I didn't. The two I knew were smiling also. The one I had yet to meet was not smiling, and she was all in black.

I forgot all about Gandalf's hair.

I had cancer, Lord Elrond informed me, after Gandalf ushered Bilbo out of the room on the pretext of going out to the gardens for a smoke. It started in a little gland at the base of my brain, but was now spread over all my body, into organs I didn't even know I had. I should have been dead by now, I was told, and had I not left, I would have been dead in a matter of months, if not sooner, and my death would have been painful and horrible indeed, in all probability. Obviously, I was much tougher than I looked. And I could see much more clearly what Lord Elrond meant when he said I had done well to spare Sam the ordeal of watching me die.

I shuddered at the diagnosis, although it came as no great surprise. My disease was very rare in the Shire and was therefore regarded as something of a disgrace, as if it were a punishment visited upon one for some heinous deed that had gone undetected. Yet, after the initial shock, I felt a vast relief. I felt as though my burden had finally been lifted and cast away. That I had been bathed internally, purged, reborn, renewed.

I felt visible.

Still, although my mind had been liberated, for my body, the healing ritual in the Temple was only the beginning. I would have to stay in bed for weeks, maybe months. I could not get up except to visit the privy. If I wished to bathe, I would have to ring for someone to take me to the bath-house. I was allowed to take my bath in private, at least, but I had to summon someone to come get me when I was done, which seemed rather silly, since I had the use of my legs and the bath-house was not far from my room. I could take my meals on the terrace, and sit out there as long as I wished, but if I wanted to stroll around the gardens, someone had to carry me about like a babe.

(By the way, in case you have ever wondered if Elves have to use the toilet—psst, they do! Just not as much as we do. I have known this from childhood actually, when I asked Bilbo, and when he said yes I was shocked and horrified, and didn't believe him for the longest, certain that he was having me on, until I came to Rivendell and found he was right. Of course, by then I was at an age to be accepting, even rather glad of it, for it was a connection between them and us lower folk. Not so poor Pippin, and the rest of us teased him unmercifully about it. The facilities they have here for disposing of the, er, residue, are wonderfully advanced and ingenious.)

I am sure there are many who would have envied me my period of confinement. I was brought delicious food, bread and butter and honey and cheese and fruits of such variety of which I hadn't known existed. I was given a drug to keep back pain and another to treat my illness, and both often made me groggy but did not dull my appetite. The meals were brought it by three of the loveliest ladies I had ever seen, and Gandalf told me, with twinkling eyes (he grew younger every day, it seemed, his hair all black now and his face completely unlined except when he laughed and then his eyes would crinkle up) that they had argued one day among themselves who got to bring in my trays, until they worked out a system of taking turns. Lady Celebrían brought me my breakfasts, which seemed very fitting, for she was like to the morning herself, gay and smiling, twinkling and flowing with a gentle humor as she arranged the dishes onto the terrace table, quick and graceful as a small white bird. When she said she hoped I did not mind such cheap and shoddy surroundings, it was a full moment before I realized she was making a joke. Lady Galadriel brought my noon meals, majestic and goldenly beautiful as the high sunlight, and Lady Elwing served me dinner and supper, hauntingly luminous and ethereal in the dusk…

I was, of course, quite smitten with her.

So I was with all of them, but with her most of all, I am sure. It was not only her resemblance to her granddaughter. (I still have a hard time imagining her as _anybody's_ grandmother, although I knew she could have been my own several thousand times over.) There was just such a melody to her being, a jeweled depth and timelessness, that worked its way into my very bones and chained me sweetly to it, wrapped itself all around me with velvet wings. It will be hard, I suppose, for the reader to understand that it did not matter that she would be always out of my reach, that I had scarcely any physical contact with her and did not need it. I would not have understood that, myself, before coming here. But the fact was, such was the virtue of this place that just to be in her presence was bliss. She, and the others, very rarely touched me, except to kiss my forehead for goodnight, which was nothing more than my mother would have done, but was no less wonderful for that.

And…you might remember that I mentioned a fourth Lady. Not the one in the Temple…that was Estë, the Healer, who had come all the way from Aman to see me, knowing I would need her even before I arrived. I would see her again, just once more. No, the one I had seen the first day I woke in the new House of Elrond-the Lady in black, who stood off behind Lady Galadriel and Lady Elwing at a distance and did not smile, whom I had seen from a distance, in the garden, but had yet to meet.

Her name was Ríannor.


	3. Riannor

Part III: Ríannor

_As a shower of stars her wingéd form descended __  
__In her gemmed breast wisdom and beauty perfect blended__  
__Her hair flowing all but swallowed the midnight__  
__Her footfalls fleeting as twin shafts of quick light__  
__In her shimmering eyes joy and woe quiet mingled…_

"Complete rubbish," I muttered and balled up the blotted paper on which I'd scribbled these lines, then tossed it onto the considerable heap of paper balls that had accumulated in the small waste receptacle beside my bed. "'Swallowed the midnight', indeed! And the only words I can think of that rhyme with 'mingled' are 'jingled' and 'tingled', and I don't think I can work either of those in. And don't you think we overuse that word 'shimmering'?"

I smiled in spite of myself, trying to come up with a different word. I had been here for nearly a month, I think, and sometimes I grew impatient and cranky with Bilbo and Gandalf, but when the Lady Elwing entered my room, I immediately straightened up and became a lamb. I'm sure they must have had a good laugh about it behind my back.

And they told me she quite doted on me. I was not so vain as to swallow that whole; probably they were just trying to make me happy, dear old fellows, but it was a most pleasant thought. Very, very pleasant...….

"Frodo," called Gandalf from the terrace, "would the other renowned hobbit-poet like to take a break and come sit out in the sunshine with us for a spell? The day is getting lovelier by the minute…and I must say, the view is breathtaking."

I distinctly saw him wink at Bilbo.

"I suppose so," I called back, "if you will come and carry said helpless creature out there. He's not supposed to go out there on his own feet, even though the privy is much further away and he's allowed to transport himself there."

Once settled into my very comfy padded long chair on the terrace, I saw what he meant by the view. Ladies Galadriel, Elwing, and Celebrian were all sitting together in the garden near a fountain full of twinkling sunlight, along with the Mystery Lady, Ríannor, whom I still had yet to meet. Gandalf and Bilbo sat at a small round table made of glass. Glass tables, yet! What would they think of next?

I was not allowed to smoke, so Gandalf and Bilbo kindly refrained from taking their pipes in my presence. I had been watched quite closely to make sure I didn't light up when no one was about, and they were probably right to watch me. They offered me oranges and honey cake with almonds by way of compensation, and I did not refuse.

"Frodo," Bilbo said holding up a small plate, "look at this. You left a bunch of grapes out in the sun yesterday, and they've dried up completely. Just look at that, they're shriveled up worse than I am." He flung them out into the garden before I could protest.

"I know, Bilbo," I said. "I left them so on purpose. Dried grapes are wonderfully delicious. I discovered that by accident in the Shire not long ago, when I fell asleep out-of-doors and forgot them in the sunlight. Gandalf, will you please go down and get them for me?"

Gandalf retrieved the dried grapes from the grass, plucking one to taste as he did so.

"Hmm…they _are_ nice, very nice indeed," he remarked. "I hadn't known grapes could be dried. Try some, Bilbo?"

"No, thank you," my uncle said waving them away, with his mouth half full. "You two are more than welcome to them. I don't fancy _anything_ dried, myself. Dried grapes, yet! Who ever heard of such a thing? And you shouldn't be falling asleep in the sunlight, my lad; you know how easily you burn."

"I was in the shade; it was the grapes that were in the sunlight," I stoutly defended myself as I laid a few of them on my honey-cake. "Sam and Rosie often baked them into cakes and loaves, and they're quite tasty. To be sure, many other hobbits turned up their noses at them also, but it's their loss. You know how they are about anything they haven't tried before."

I looked innocently at Gandalf. It would be only a matter of minutes before Bilbo would have to try the dried grapes now that he knew other hobbits had turned up their noses at them. Trust him to take on anything that was scorned by the multitude! Then to divert Gandalf's attention away from Bilbo momentarily, I pointed out an amazing bird that had appeared on the lawn, bright iridescent blue with a long, long spotted tail of blue and green and purple and bronze, strutting about now in a glimmer of sunshine as though he were well aware of how much more glorious he looked in the light. But I wasn't really looking at him; rather I was looking sidewise at the silver ball that graced the top of the rail on the terrace steps, in which I could see my uncle's reflection as he quickly reached for some of the dried grapes and popped them into his mouth.

It looked as though he found the taste quite agreeable. Gandalf and I grinned smugly at each other.

I could hardly get used to the way he looked now, with the black hair and youthful face…and his clothes! He wore a muted blue, now. Much easier to keep clean. But, Gandalf the Blue? Surely not. I didn't think the color really suited him, but I said nothing about it. I'd leave that to Bilbo.

I shook my head and looked back into the garden. I wanted to ask about the Mystery Lady, but Bilbo was sure to tease if I brought up the subject of Elf-women around him. I'd have to wait until he dozed off, I supposed, and even then I'd have to be careful. I could see Ríannor now; she had a potter's-wheel and was deftly molding a lump of clay into a graceful shape with her long white hands. I had yet to see her close up, but I could see she was tall and rather too thin, with perfectly straight, jet-black hair that cascaded well past her waist, and skin that had a rather unhealthy pallor to it. And I noticed she did not laugh when the other Ladies did, and that she did not seem to partake of their chatter at all, or even seem to be aware of it, and she still wore black, while the others wore white or soft colors. Lady Celebrian was weaving at her tapestry loom, her hair a mingling of sunshine and moonlight in the green shade. Galadriel worked at embroidery, while Lady Elwing modeled in clay also, but without a wheel. She was shaping it into a dove, or so it looked from here. I could understand nothing of their conversation, but the sound of their voices fell as gently on my senses as a playful fountain on a sultry day.

All of them had experienced profound sorrow, I knew. But from where I sat, they all appeared somehow untouched by it—except Ríannor. I felt a strong curiosity and sympathy as I watched her. I thought of myself, after the Quest, sitting at the Green Dragon with Sam and Merry and Pippin, hearing their chatter and jokes and feeling somehow left out, having no part in it, thinking it had nothing to do with me. Was that what she was feeling now?

Sooner or later, I had to find out about her. I would ask Lord Elrond in the evening.

"Keep watching them, Frodo," Bilbo's voice startled me. "It's much better therapy than Elf-medicine, without a doubt. Pity there were so few Elf-women in Minas Tirith. Your recovery there would have been much speedier, I'm sure. Frodo has quite a thing for Elf-ladies, you know," he remarked to Gandalf with a wink as I choked on an orange slice. "Merry told me all about when they were at the house of Tom Bombadill. Said Frodo here was sweet-talking Tom's pretty lady nine to the dozen at first sight of her. If he'd been bigger, old Tom would no doubt have pitched him out on his ear."

Gandalf laughed aloud, saying, "Yes, I heard about that. Quite the poet, our Frodo!"

My face flamed and I pressed my lips together hard, but I picked up the plate of raisins and held it to my uncle, saying sweetly, "Have some more, Bilbo."

"Thankee, don't mind if I do," he said, and wolfed down the entire plateful without batting an eye. "No doubt you'd have been married by now, if you'd tried that sort of thing on your own kind. But you don't seem to care for hobbit-lasses."

"That is an ugly rumor to which there is no truth whatsoever," I said blushing once more. "Actually, I cared for them far too much. If I had married one, I would not have been able to keep my eyes off others, and would have driven my poor wife mad, I'm sure."

"Pah," Bilbo scoffed. "I think you just don't consider your own sort interesting enough, that's what it is. Now Elf-ladies, they have history about them. Lived through wars and sieges and slaughters and campaigns and quests and Eru knows what all, countless generations of it. Depth and scope and and glory, a world of sorrow and regret and joy and courage and delight, fighting for the right and for the wrong, for freedom and for land and for jewelry, sending husbands and sons off to battle, watching their daughters become widows, yet singing all the while about the beauty and wonder of existence. With hobbit-women, it's more a matter of deciding what to cook for supper, or wondering if the bairns are going to catch that strain of whooping-cough that's going around."

"I've a feeling Bilbo misses making speeches," Gandalf chuckled.

I shrugged, not wanting to tell my uncle the real reason I had not married. He would have blamed himself, as he blamed himself for all the other things that had befallen me on account of the Ring, which had destroyed my ability to be a father. What hobbit-maiden wanted to marry anyone who could not give her a child? I suppose I could have married some widow who needed a male to help her raise the little ones, but there had been none about who had taken my fancy.

"Look," Gandalf said, pointing out the peacock, who had spread his tail-feathers into a large fan. "He's showing off for the Ladies, I declare! Damned conceited fowl."

I smiled gratefully at him, knowing this to be a ruse for getting off the subject of me and marriage. I saw and heard the Ladies, all but Ríannor, exclaiming in delight over the performance of the bird, and once more wondered about her.

And finally I could hold back no longer.

"Who is she?" I asked Gandalf.

"She was a prisoner of Sauron," he replied quietly. I laid down the remainder of my cake, feeling my stomach lurch. "For several years. She must have gone through unspeakable horrors. She was a great queen and one of the Dark Elves on her father's side, and it was her own husband who betrayed her to Sauron, when she refused to join with him. He was a descendant of one of Galadriel's brothers, which is why the Lady has taken her under her wing. He was killed in the War, by his own allies, no doubt. She was liberated with the destruction of the Tower."

I wouldn't make it to the privy on time, so I stayed where I was, but nothing came up.

"Are you all right, dear boy?" Gandalf asked, half rising from his seat. I nodded.

"I'm…fine," I said and somewhat to my surprise, my stomach quieted. But I did not pick up the cake, or even the oranges.

"Why does she not come and speak to us then?" Bilbo asked. "Frodo here was the one who brought about her deliverance, and she does not so much as come and say hello to him?"

"I've wondered about that myself," Gandalf mused. "I know Lord Elrond has not permitted him to have visitors, but Lady Ríannor is a guest here also; surely he would have allowed her to see you."

"It's no matter," I said barely above a whisper. "And I cannot blame her."

"There you go again," Bilbo said, waving the denuded grape-stems at me impatiently. "Didn't we tell you about that?"

"That's not what I mean," I tried to explain, and it seemed my head was starting to spin a little once more_. Prisoner of Sauron. Years trapped in his dungeons. Orcs, machines of torture, whips, chains_…How had she survived? I put my fingertips to my forehead, and saw that I had broken out into a light sweat.

"You do look a bit green around the gills, my lad," Bilbo said. "Look to him, Gandalf!"

I stood up and staggered toward the rail, and tossed up my afternoon tea on the purple-flowered bushes below.


	4. Revelations

Part IV: Revelations

"She was not completely innocent," said Lord Elrond. "Far from it. Her first husband was an ally of Sauron. She was vain and ambitious. She aided Sauron in many of his campaigns, and even practiced sorcery to further her ambitions for her son. She even conspired to assassinate Isildur in order to get the Ring from him. But someone else got there first."

"And she was still allowed to come here?" I said wide-eyed.

We were in a small room on the northern end of the house. It was here I took council with the Elf-Lord for an hour each evening, and any other time I felt the need for it and he was free. The room had the same air of restfulness and purity as the entire house. It had but one very large window, which I noted was perfectly round. Before it was placed a velvet couch on which I lay or sat, while he sat across from me in a large chair with a writing-desk across his lap. I never saw what he wrote, although he would have showed me if I had asked, I think. There was a tapestry on a wall depicting a dancing maiden. And a few unique and elegant works of sculpture, some lovely pottery, and a couple of unusual plants. Candles burned in ornate sconces, casting about a soft light and sweet fragrance. It was late in the evening, and through the window I could see dramatic streaks in the northern sky, pale green and rose and scarlet and blue-white, mingled with the stars above silver mountain peaks.

"She turned from Sauron in the end," he explained quietly. "And after six or seven years in his prisons, I would venture to say she is more than sufficiently punished. I suppose you have wondered why she has not come and spoken to you?"

"I think I know why," I said. "She wants to be invisible."

"Invisible?" Lord Elrond raised an eyebrow.

"Yes." I laid my left hand over my right. "She wants to disappear—to be a shadow. I know the feeling, because I wanted it myself. I wanted to fade, to recede into…I don't really know how to explain it exactly."

"As in your poem?" Lord Elrond said. I jerked my head up. "I think perhaps your poem, in which you depicted yourself as being ignored, grew out of a secret desire to be invisible, as you say, to recede back into the place of your origins. At first I thought your fondness for bathing grew out of a feeling of having been besmirched, and wanting to come clean, but perhaps there is more to it..."

Just then came a tap on the door. It opened a crack, and Lady Celebrían's musical voice spoke: "May I interrupt for a moment? I wouldn't, but you two have been at it an uncommonly long time, you know. Is everything all right?"

"Yes, my dearest, fine. What have you there?"

She opened the door wider and I could see she bore a small basket, which she came over and set on a small table beside my couch. Mushrooms!

"I'm told you love these," she said with a suggestion of a giggle, "so Elwing and I went out this morning and picked a bunch of them! You were napping when we came back, so I put them down in the fruit-cellar, and then, silly me, I forgot all about them. It's the strangest thing—I've walked through that meadow hundreds of times and never saw a single mushroom before, and then, just the other day, there were hundreds! All over the place, and so many colors! It's as if they were waiting just for you, Frodo!"

I looked at the basket in delight. They were a different sort than I had ever seen before, but I knew nothing poisonous could grow on this island.

"Thank you so much, my Lady," I said smiling. "They look and smell wonderful."

"We had a lark of a time," she said radiantly. "We saw a flock of deer feeding, and Elwing brought some seed in her pocket to feed birds and she had them eating right from her hands. You know how she is about living creatures."

I sometimes wondered if she were aware that her daughter was not coming back. I had found out that yes, she knew; Lady Elwing had told her, long before Lord Elrond came back. She had known in that way she knew about such things, and had prepared her for a long time. I had yet to find out how she had come to terms with the loss. Looking at her now, I could hardly believe that anything terrible could ever have happened to her.

Lord Elrond smiled—really smiled, this time. It was such a rare thing to see, that it always startled me greatly when it happened.

"Yes, I know well how Nana is," he said. "I wonder how she manages without her bird tower anymore."

I knew that Lady Elwing had moved out of her tower when Lady Celebrían came to the Island, and had become a priestess in order to aid her the more fully and quickly with her healing. Her tower, I was told, was still standing, and she had offered to show it to me when I was strong enough to get out. I was still trying to figure a way to decline. I didn't want to go near it, even in her company. I'd had enough of towers to last me for two lifetimes, thank you!

"Well, I shall let you two get back to what you were doing," Lady Celebrían said with a little laugh. "I had better go help Mother in the kitchen. She's throwing a fit. Tilwen just smashed a jug of cream and made a terrible mess. She's getting married soon, you know, and simply cannot keep her mind on what she's doing. I hope we shan't have to get another maid-servant after the wedding! Just look at those lights, aren't they beautiful tonight?"

She gave me a little peck on the forehead, smiled at her husband, and flurried out. The room seemed much darker without her. I offered Lord Elrond the bowl of mushrooms. He took one, just to be polite, I suspect.

"Well, where were we?" he said. I was rather hoping he would say that was enough for tonight. We _had _been at it for a rather long time. And I didn't think I liked where the conversation was heading. While there was some part of me that actually wanted to go in that direction, the rest of me dreaded the very thought of it. Of course, he knew it. I couldn't fool him for a minute. I very rarely even tried.

"Lady Ríannor," I said softly. This was one of those rare times. "Why did she turn against Sauron?"

"He killed her son," Lord Elrond said. I lifted my eyebrows. "She had three sons, and one is thought to be living still. One fell in battle, and the eldest, Arasirion, the son of her first husband, was her favorite. She was rather insanely devoted to him. No one is sure why Sauron had him killed. Most likely her second husband, Helkhatil, had something to do with it. I should imagine that he was jealous of her love for his stepson, and of her popularity with their people. I think she imagined herself the consort of Sauron in some twisted way, although she had no actual love for him. Both her husbands were preoccupied with their dominions, and paid little heed to her; she was merely an ornament to them and a means for producing heirs. So they had no idea what was really going on in her mind. She felt hidden, shut away, dammed up. So she did what she could to put herself and her son in full view. She even took a notion to obtain the region of Parin, which had been lost in a war with Rhûn, for Arasirion, and many were needlessly killed as a result. Arasirion was murdered quite horribly by orcs and his head brought to her on a spear. She fairly went out of her mind with grief, denounced Sauron repeatedly and promised his downfall. I suppose that is when Helkhatil betrayed her. He was biding his time, waiting for the right moment."

I looked out the window once more, trying to take it in. I had even forgotten about the mushrooms. Then I reached out to take one, just to try and drive the thought of Ríannor and Sauron's prisons out of my head, but it was a feeble attempt, and I didn't even bite into it. Shamefully, I found myself wishing that this unfortunate Lady had never come here. I touched my forehead and found that I had broken out into a light sweat.

"Did Lady Galadriel know her before all this?" I asked just by way of stalling off the inevitable, absently breaking the mushroom in half.

"Not really. They were enemies, of course, even though Helkhatil was a descendant of Galadriel's brother—I guess I told you that already. I don't even know how she recognized her among the refugees. The poor creature was skin and bones, of course, and her hair was all white and she had almost none of her own teeth left. Galadriel and I took her to Rivendell and nursed her back into some semblance of health. If she had been mortal, she would have died, of course."

"It's very kind of the Lady to take her in," I said, crumbling my mushroom onto the front of my shirt. My hands were shaking. There was a silky throw lying at one end of the couch and I reached over and pulled it over myself, although it was not really cold in the room. I heard, rather than saw Lord Elrond lay down the writing-desk. I don't think he had written down a thing.

"Frodo," he said softly. I didn't look up. "Frodo, have you ever considered talking with Celebrían about what happened to you?"

"No," I said, in some surprise. "Why would I? I mean…well, I know why. I mean, I know what happened to her. And I would not make her remember such a thing."

"Nor would hear of it yourself?" he said not unkindly. I looked up at him.

"No, I would not," I said. "The very thought of it sickens me. I do not see how she lives with the memory of it. She-she went through worse than I did."

"You think so?"

"Yes, of course." I looked up in surprise. "They had her much longer than they had me. And they…you know what they did to her. And then she had to leave. And…"

"How long did they have you, Frodo?" he asked. I realized he knew very little about my imprisonment.

"I'm not sure," I murmured. "A day, or less, I think. I was unconscious much of the time. And, and in the morning…there was Sam. I…" My voice trailed off. I balled what was left of my mushroom in the palm of my hand.

"What did they do to you?" he insisted. "Frodo, believe me I'm not trying to torment you to no purpose. To make all this go away, you must confront it first. I thought perhaps it would do you good to talk with someone who had been through it also."

"What is there to tell that you don't know already?" I spoke just above a whisper. "They stripped me, they beat me, they kicked me, they, they asked me things, they threatened me…they put their hands on me…" I was shaking all over, and I pulled the throw more over me. I think I even had a notion to put it over my head.

"Did they intrude your body?" he asked gently.

"No…except in my dreams. But…what they did, what HE did…was worse, I think. I saw him, and he…he intruded me then, it was like, like a burning pitchfork thrust right through the middle of me. He opened me up entirely, I was, I was utterly exposed to him, skinned alive. I don't know h-how to explain it exactly. I guess only in a dream it could happen, b-but there it was. And I, I can't make it go away. I…"

I found that I had drawn up my knees to my chin, compressing myself into a tight ball. It had been a long time since I had done that.

"I forced myself never to think of it again. I locked it into a dark closet in my mind, and told myself never would I open that door again. Sam said yes, that was the best way, but of course it crept out at night like a horrible phantom and got into my dreams…."

Lord Elrond rose from his chair and came to sit beside me. I shrank up even more. I didn't want him to touch me. I never wanted anyone to touch me again. I thought of Sam, when the dreams came to me and he would come into my room and hold me until I fell asleep again, the way my mother had when I was small, and he would never do that any more because I had left him without explaining why I had to disappear, left him wondering why he could not help me, why my visibility would amount to madness ultimately.

"I miss Sam," I said and my eyes puddled up and overflowed. And I heard Lord Elrond apologize to me, not in words, but rather in a kind of invisible veil that fell between us. The veil apologized for his not being Sam just as I had once apologized to him for not being Arwen. He put his arm around me and I let him do it, and I even put an arm around him too, in a gesture of apology, both for not being Arwen and also for his not being really able to comfort me. The embrace was incomplete because of the veil, and yet he held me for a long moment. Then he fished a handkerchief out of my shirt pocket and dabbed at my face, and I don't think my mother's touch was ever any more gentle. Then he guided my hand to the pendant that I still wore. I grasped it so tightly it hurt my hand, at first, but finally I grew calmer inside.

The veil was still there, however.

"Is this why you want to disappear?" he asked me at long last.

"I guess so," I murmured. "It's like something Sam told me when he put on the Ring. He said he didn't feel he had disappeared—rather, he felt horribly visible, he said. Gandalf told me that if you put it on too often you would fade until you became invisible…well, I think the opposite happened."

"But you've done well here, Frodo," Elrond pointed out. "You've filled out, there's color in your cheeks, and light in your eyes. And you haven't as much grey in your hair, if you've noticed. Your scars are fading. And you've seemed happy. Have you been? Or do you think it was all falseness?"

"I _have_ been happy," I said. "Very. But then I had to go and ask…about _her_. I was afraid to ask before, I think, but finally I had to do it. Now it seems the shadow has come back. It's like a box I was not supposed to open, but I did, and the shadow flew out and caught me by the throat."

"Do you want me to send her away?" he asked. "There are places she can go. The Lady will go with her, of course. She—"

"No, don't send her away," I said, almost reluctantly, at first, but after a moment, I found that I meant it. Somehow, I wanted her there. Not because I thought I could help her—I knew better than that. I had some absurd notion that she was my shadow, and to remove her would rend me in half somehow.

Lord Elrond rose, took the throw and settled it over me. I relaxed a little and lay back on the couch, hugging one of the embroidered cushions to me as though it were a toy, sniffling childishly. I felt grateful I didn't have to explain why I didn't want her sent away, that he knew the reason even better than I did. I was abashed to look up at him and see that look again, that he was not taking on my counseling just because he felt responsible for me, that I was here because he had failed to make Isildur destroy the Ring. Had he been successful, I would never have gone through any of this; I would have been just another hobbit, living peacefully in the Shire doing hobbit things with none but the usual cares, and when I died I would have been only a name in a book, remembered only by my closest kin until were gone too; then none would remember me at all and I would have passed into oblivion.

That would have been wonderful, truly.

But, of course that was not what had happened, and he felt responsible. Yet I could see in his eyes that there was more to it than that. He could look straight at me and know me for what I really was; I could not hide anything from him. In some wise it was as Sauron with his fiery spear in my dream, piercing me through, turning me inside out, and yet exactly the opposite; he could see all I was, and yet in his eyes there was no condemnation or mockery or rage, only love and concern and perfect understanding.

"Frodo," he said, "I didn't speak of this before, because you seemed to be doing very well. But there is a way to make it disappear. We can empty your memory entirely, wipe it clean. You would remember nothing. It is an extreme measure, and one I do not recommend. But if you cannot shake off the Shadow any other way, it can be done. You would be as a child again—you would still have ordinary skills, language, feeding yourself, the usual things. But of all that passed in Middle-Earth—that would be obliterated from your mind. It would be as if you had always dwelt here."

I stared up at him. He had taken his chair once more, but looked at me intently. Forget everything that had happened to me?

"But I would forget Bilbo," I said, "and…"

"Sam," he finished for me. "Yes, as I said, extreme measures. It could be done for Bilbo and for Sam as well, and naturally, as the only hobbits on the Island, you would be still drawn to each other. It would be a simple matter of getting to know each other all over again. I didn't tell you of this in the beginning because I feared you might accept it too hastily. Do not decide all at once, and difficult as it may seem, do not make any hasty decisions tonight."

"Did Lady Celebrían take this treatment?" I asked. If she had, it would explain her seeming untouched-ness, although on the other hand, she had latched onto Lord Elrond very quickly!

"No," he said with a smile. "It was offered her, of course, but she said she did not want to forget me, or her children. As I said, my mother undertook her counseling, and came to love her as a daughter."

"And so she has forgotten what happened to her?" I asked hopefully.

"Not forgotten exactly. It's more as you said, the memory is locked away where she cannot see it any more. But it cannot escape and haunt her. It's more like a corpse than a phantom. It simply rots in the ground and has no power over her."

"She's very brave, isn't she?" I said with the bare beginnings of a smile. "So that is how it will be with me? If I do not agree to being…erased?"

"Yes, although you must work at it. It does not happen all at once. Of course, it takes a long time and you are mortal, as she is not. I cannot say how long exactly; it varies which each person. You may take all the time you wish about deciding."

"What about Lady Ríannor?" I said. "Shouldn't you offer that treatment to her?"

"We have," he said, "and it is being done, but it also does not happen all at once, and I think she is resisting it."

"Why would she?"

"I'm not sure. Perhaps she believes she does not deserve it. Perhaps she does not want to forget her sons. Or maybe there is some inner chain that binds her yet. I dare say she is not even aware she is resisting. I have never seen any person who has been 'erased' thus; I only know it is sometimes doneIf you choose it yourself, come to me and I will prepare you. But do not choose hastily. Try to distance yourself from what you have told me tonight."

"I have already decided," I said. "I do not choose it. I will never forget my dear ones, or any beautiful memories I have. And I shall not give Sauron the satisfaction."

It seemed Lord Elrond sat up much straighter, although he was sitting straight, as he always did, already.

"You'll not, will you?" he said, and I can swear there was more light in his face.

"No. He will _not _make me disappear. He thought he could take all from me, empty out everything I was, down to my very bones, but I will not let him. He shall never have me."

I think Bilbo and Gandalf would have been proud of me at that moment. A pity they would not know of it, since Lord Elrond had long ago given me his word that nothing I told him here would ever go past this room without my leave. Yet, somehow, I felt, they _would_ know, even if they did not hear it.

I wish I could describe the look on Lord Elrond's face. He appeared as one who had scored a long-awaited victory, and could lay his burden down at last. And I thought I heard a very soft, faint tearing sound. Like a veil being ripped wide open, perhaps.

"But you wish it for Ríannor," he pointed out. "You would have Sauron take all from her then?"

"It's different with her," I said. "I think she gave to him willingly, while he took it from me by force. She has the shame of that. I had shame too, but it was shame that was thrust on me. But she can triumph over him by emptying herself and becoming filled up again. Filled with pure light for all to see."

I felt strangely weightless and steady as I entered my room to find Bilbo hunched over in a chair with a book. Something told me he had not read a single word the whole time I was gone.

I said I would go and bathe, and would he come with me, assuring him I was allowed to walk out there now and he could ask Lord Elrond if he didn't believe me. We got our nightshirts and robes and I took my glass, and we walked out to the bathhouse. I pointed out the northern lights, and Bilbo said yes, they were very lovely, but I think he wasn't really seeing them. The bathhouse was built in an octagonal structure of rosy marble, with high oval windows of crystal glass. The tub was sunken in the floor and was fed by a warm spring, which came in by means of two pipes in the sides that could be opened with a metal wheel, and also through a statue of a nearly nude marble maiden holding a silver pitcher tipped on her shoulder. The water poured out of the pitcher and you could soap yourself all over and stand under the shower of water until you were all rinsed off. At first I was shy of the maiden, her expression was so mischievous, and I would bathe behind her back, and Bilbo laughed at me about it, but I noticed he stayed behind her most of the time also. There were several flowering evergreen plants all round the tub; you could pluck leaves and drop them in the water to raise a spicy and soothing fragrance. There were candle sconces all around on the walls under each window, and if you lit them at night, they would cause the windows to sparkle like giant stars, but tonight my glass was enough.

Bilbo was strangely quiet as we washed ourselves. He remarked that I had been in with Lord Elrond for a mighty long time and if Gandalf had let him he would have slipped upstairs and eavesdropped. I said something to the effect that, well, these things took time, which was true enough. He looked at me and I felt uncomfortable in the silence, but then a softness fell over his face, and he said, "My lad, just look at you. You're a fair sight. Glowing like a candle you are."

After we were done, we dried off, put on our nightshirts and robes, and headed back to the house, and I remarked about how good it was to be able to go back on my own two feet, which was also true enough.

Then suddenly we halted. I could see someone in the garden, sitting on a bench. It was Ríannor.

"It's her," Bilbo said, as though I didn't know already. I noticed something else strange about her: she had no light.

I quivered inside. An Elf with no light was like a hobbit with no shadow, I thought.

"Bilbo," I whispered, "go on inside, please. I'll be there in a little while. Take this." I handed him my glass and told him to be careful not to trip on the terrace steps.

"Frodo-lad," he protested softly, "I—"

"Please, Uncle," I said firmly. He sighed, and said all right, but if I didn't come back soon, he was coming to get me. I laughed at him and said all right.

After he had gone in, I slipped about the rose-trees for a minute or two. Then, making my footsteps silent as hobbits know how to do, I crept behind Ríannor and saw she was looking at her left wrist. In the soft dim lamps that lit the garden, I could see there was a mark of some kind on the white skin. A number, I thought with a strange and inexplicable horror. I almost turned back, until I heard something like a faint sob. Then I went to her and laid three large, perfect golden roses in her lap.

She didn't start. She had Elf-ears after all, and was probably aware of my presence all along. But she turned her head and looked at me. I saw a face of uncommon beauty even for an Elf, tears glittering like tiny stars on her thin cheeks. Whatever I had planned to say to her, I could not for the life of me remember now.

So I just looked up at her a long moment, then stammered that I must go back now, and turned back toward my room. I glanced over my shoulder, just once, at her before entering, and saw her holding the flowers and looking at them.

I expected Bilbo to make some teasing remark, but he did not. After I had climbed into bed, he came and sat down beside me, just looking down at me for a few moments.

"All right, Bilbo," I said, "say whatever is on your mind. You will, sooner or later."

"Frodo my lad," he said, taking my hand in both of his, "I'm old, but I'm not stupid. There's something very bad happened to you that you haven't told me, isn't there? I know you think you're protecting me by not telling me, but I swear to you I would rather know about it, no matter what it is, than just have to keep wondering. It's connected to that woman, isn't it? Were you taken prisoner?"

"Uncle, I needn't tell about it twice in one day, must I," I said with mock testiness. "Can't you just let me go on protecting you?"

"What did they do to you?" he insisted. I put my other hand over his, the maimed one. The one I usually tried to hide. In turn, he ran one finger down my left side. I jumped as though he had touched a sore place. It was where the whip scar was…or had been. It was nearly gone now. I had never even supposed Bilbo could see it, although his eyesight had improved, along with his hearing, since we had arrived.

"I'll tell you only if you promise not to blame yourself," I said. "You always blame yourself for everything that's happened to me after you went to Rivendell, and I want you to stop it right now." I deliberately took the tone he had used with me on the ship.

"But…if I had only taken It with me," he said pitifully, and I held a finger to his lips.

"If you had taken _the Ring_ with you," I said, with a smile, "the Enemy would have gotten it, and unspeakable things would have followed. And there is no possible way you could have known what would come of it. You know that as well as I do, dear silly hobbit."

"All right then," he said after a moment. "I promise not to blame myself. Now tell me."

I sat up and told him about the tunnel, about Sam's battle with the monster-spider, and his finding me in the Tower. I left out the worst parts, hoping to make it sound an entertaining adventure. But, even as Bilbo said, he was not stupid. I saw his face grow grey and very old indeed, and my heart sank to think all the vigor he had acquired since coming here might come to naught, and every wonderful thing that had come to us, would be all undone.

"Well…" he said after a long moment, when I had finished my account. "Well. I never. I…well. My stars. To think that…how long did they have you, did you say?"

"A few hours, I think," I said untruthfully, shrugging. "I was so groggy from that creature's poison, I didn't really know what was going on most of the time. It wasn't as bad as it sounds, Uncle."

I prayed that I sounded convincing. Bilbo stood up, drew the curtains over the terrace, then got into the huge bed beside me. I asked him to hand me my glass, which was on a little table on his side of the bed. He gave it to me and I re-lit it, then put out the lamp on my side of the bed. We both lay looking at the silvery glow of the phial.

"That Gollum," he growled. "And to think I spared his miserable, mangy hide, the stinking little toad-faced-if I ever get my hands on him, I'll, I'll…"

"He's dead, Uncle dear," I reminded him. "And it's well that you spared him, you know. I've already told you about that."

"Yes yes, that's so. But if he _was_ alive, and I had him here, I would just…well, he'd jump in the fire just to get away from _me_, so he would."

I laughed out loud: "He would, I'm sure."

"I always knew Sam loved you dearly," Bilbo said thoughtfully, "but…well. I never heard such a thing. I scarcely know what to say."

"That's very unusual, for you," I grinned. "I should mark it on the calendar."

I set the light on the table, dimming it to a candle-like glow, then rolled over and laid my head on Bilbo's shoulder. He slid both arms around me and kissed my brow. Then as sleep crept on us both, from outside I heard a few silky notes from a gold harp, then the creamy tone of a flute, and along with that, another instrument, which was laid in the lap and played with a bow, such as I had never seen in Middle-earth, but it had such a rich and poignant timbre that it both gladdened the heart and brought tears to the eyes. This was Lady Elwing's instrument. Lady Galadriel played the harp, of course, and Lady Celebrían was likely to change her flute for a tabor at any given moment, or a smaller harp, or to sing with her own silvery, clear voice. The music rose as a heavenly mist, drifting with all the colors of the aurora, and it found me as the hands of a mother, covering me with all possible beauty and recognition under the stars.


	5. Poetic License

Part V: Poetic License

I woke to find a beautiful vase on my desk. It was pure white with a glaze like snow and a graceful design of gold curls and ripples on the neck, and as I looked closer, an etching of gold roses. Bilbo gazed at it in wonder.

"Now where did that come from?" he said. I just smiled to myself.

Tilwen brought our breakfast out to us on the terrace. She was very young, not much older than I was, surely. She was small for an Elf, her hair a pale copper, glossy and silky and fine, her skin a shell-like pink and white, eyes silver-grey with a tinge of green. She had that compelling fragile grace that very young Elf-maidens have—in fact she was the first such I had seen up close. She was getting married soon and was in a constant flutter.

"What do you think?" she said as she set out the dishes from the tray. "That strange…_lady_…was wearing a _green _dress!"

"Ríannor?" I said, my eyebrows popping upward.

"The very one. Help us! Well, it was _dark _green, and she still scarcely has two words to say to _me_, but _still_. A _green_ dress! I think Lady Celebrían has been trying to convince her that that black thing spooks you, or something. I guess she finally got the message, and high time. In very truth, it spooks me too."

"And me," Bilbo agreed. "Witchy it looks. She'd be a mighty fair lady if she'd wear something that didn't make her look like she lives off in a cave somewhere. And maybe put a little meat on the bones."

I thought of the gold roses on the vase, and the number on her wrist.

Later Bilbo excused himself to the privy and I was left sitting alone on the terrace. I thought of the previous night, and as if I had conjured her just by thinking of her, there she was in front of me, emerging from the adjoining room.

"Iorhael," she lost no time with greetings, "come with me, please. I wish to show you something."

I rose in slow wonder. Her dress was a dark green indeed—it would have looked black in a dim light, but it was a start, and the color looked well on her.

"I…I'm not supposed to walk far by myself," I stammered as she extended a hand to me.

"It is not far at all," she said. There was a strangely husky quality to her voice, as though she had not used it in years. "The old one may come too, if you wish."

"I'll come," I said, still cautious, telling myself, well, what could it possibly be? Nothing dangerous, surely. "By the way, the vase is very beautiful."

"I have always loved golden flowers," she replied just above a whisper.

"So have I," I said.

We passed through the red velvet curtains, through a room filled mostly with books and a few artifacts and ornaments—this was the library, of course. She led me through the door and into the hallway and through another door and up the stairway. I wanted to ask where we were going, I rather hoped not to her bedroom, but reminded myself that she wouldn't have said Bilbo might come if it were anything amiss. The idea was just slightly ludicrous anyway, now wasn't it? But, what did she want to show me?

She took a key from her pocket and opened a door in the hallway. Why a key? I wondered, my heart fluttering a bit. We stepped into a small room lined with shelves, but there were no books on them. Instead, the light from the large eastern window revealed that they were covered with works of pottery: vases, bowls, ewers, cups, candle-sticks…dozens and dozens of them. A potter's-wheel stood to one side. This must be her work-room, I thought inanely. The things were all starkly different from the vase she had given me. That one had been beautiful and ornamental, but these-they were strange in a way that was hard to explain. It was no lot of pretty crockery; it was art. But not like any art I had ever seen before. It was disturbing, that was the word. There was a large round shape with several necks coming up from it of different sizes, some twisted, some rigid, some drooping as if in despair. There was a huge vase painted with eyes—that was all, just eyes, all over it. There was a very, very tall white shape, that looked too much like a tower for my comfort, and yes, there were windows in it, pointed ones, stark black inside, points on top. I had to avert my eyes from that one. There were some more conventional shapes, but painted with things I could not recognize, things that had come out of dark places in the soul. Some appeared to have come out of my own dreams, and I shuddered and clutched at her hand as though she were my mother. Her expression was inscrutable, almost blank, as though she were trying to take herself away from something, and I thought perhaps this was how she dealt with what they had done to her in the prisons—taking her mind away to an unreachable place, removed from the pain and terror and degradation.

There was no denying that this was magnificent work, and I was torn between wanting to go out of the room as quick as possible and stand there and examine each piece closely. I had an idea why she was resisting her treatment now, and was sure she was doing so unconsciously. To be erased would reduce her artistry, somehow, perhaps, and she might become merely a designer of pretty knick-knacks. I doubted that; her talent was undeniable, but the fear must have been there. There were probably other reasons as well. Perhaps, like me, she saw forgetfulness as the ultimate surrender to the enemy who had butchered her son, corrupted her husband and seduced her too. No doubt she was a very strong-willed woman, and defiance had been a way of life for her.

I laid my other hand over hers, wondering how I could persuade her to give in, that it was the right thing for her and all others concerned, that her "punishment" was over and now she must step away and accept the final purgation. I felt that perhaps I had made a start, with the flowers…how had I known to give her the golden ones? The idea that with all she had been through, and all she had done, she loved golden flowers, was unspeakably poignant to me. I thought of the beauty and joy that could be hers; she could have light, dimension, shape, motion, voice. Perhaps the green dress was a step in that direction. I could not hope to do it all for her, but I could do my part when the opportunity came. Yes, I could do that much, perhaps. If I had learned anything, it was that.

"You have seen enough?" she said finally. I nodded and we left the room and she locked the door behind her.

"Why do you lock it?" I asked her. "No one would break in."

"Sometimes," she said, "you wish some places to remain hidden."

"Oh. Yes, of course."

"I have not thanked you," she said matter-of-factly. "It was inexcusable of me."

"Yet I do excuse it," I said with a little smile. She looked down at me with the closest thing to a facial expression I had seen from her yet.

We went back downstairs. No one was about except Gandalf and Bilbo. They looked at me questioningly as I came into the room. I told them about what I had just seen.

"Are you all right, Frodo?" Gandalf asked me. "You look a little shaken."

"I'm shaken, but I'm all right." I didn't know what else to say.

"Are you sure?" Bilbo said. "She better not be showing you things that are going to throw you all out of kilter, now. I won't have it. That woman is having an effect on you, and I don't think it's a good one. You were brought here to recover, not to get right back where you started in the first place, and I won't stand for her undoing all the good things they've worked in you. I know she's been through some horrid things I can't even half imagine and I do sympathize, but you come first with me, my lad, and I think you'd do better to stay away from her, that's what I think."

I shrugged. Perhaps he was right. But then again, my old stubborn streak was starting to come into play. What did they think I was made of, glass?

"I tell you, I'm all right," I insisted with some impatience. "Let's go out to the terrace, shall we."

We went outside and I told about the "erasing" procedure and what I had been told of Lady Ríannor's past. They listened to me thoughtfully, agreeing that it was the best thing for her and puzzling as to why she wasn't taking to the treatment. Bilbo speculated that she had lived such a long time, she had accumulated entirely too much memory to be erased overnight. He said it by way of a small joke, but I thought perhaps he had a good point. Gandalf agreed with me that the green dress was a start, and said to Bilbo that maybe it was time to stop treating me as such a delicate invalid child all the time; I wouldn't be here now if I were so fragile as that, after all. I heartily agreed, although to be truthful I did feel a bit brittle at the moment.

After luncheon, Tilwen came and cleared our table, and it did my heart good to look at her, she was such a dazzling contrast to Ríannor. Instead of the usual simple light grey dress she wore around the house, she wore a filmy pale sea-green one with a round neckline embroidered with silver leaves, and a linked silver belt. So cheerful and fresh and lovely did she look that I felt the heaviness inside me disappear. She piled our used dishes on a big tray, but instead of carrying it back inside, she set it on the table and looked steadily at me for a moment.

"Iorhael," she said, "um…I have a little favor to ask of you."

I saw Gandalf and Bilbo lift their eyebrows.

"Shall we go?" Bilbo said politely.

"Oh no no no. You may hear if you'd like. But we can go into the library if you want. It's a fitting place for what I wish to ask."

"What is it?" I asked. She pinked a little, and looked lovelier than ever.

"Well…" she sat and looked at her hands, folding them demurely in her lap, "I have heard that you are a very fine poet. This is true?"

"Well…" I blushed also. "I've only ever written one poem that was any good, and I think I really don't like it so well any more."

"Oh but you have a way of…of putting things that is so, I don't know," she said. "You use words wonderfully well, I think. Anyway, you know I'm to be married soon? And what I would like to ask is, if it doesn't seem too presumptuous…if you could compose an ode extolling the manifold virtues and beauties of my beloved? I should love to read it to him on the day of our wedding, during the ceremony and all. Of course I would give you all the credit for it, I wouldn't dream of passing it off as my own. He is a great war hero, and I think it would be _such _a fitting tribute? What do you think?"

I didn't dare look at Gandalf or Bilbo then. I felt, rather than saw them both turn their backs very quickly.

"Um…" I thought, if they were laughing at me, I could tell her that Bilbo was the real poet, and she should ask him instead. "Well, it is a great honor to be asked, my Lady, but you see…I've never met your betrothed. I've no idea what he's like."

"Well, of course I will introduce you!" she burst into a peal of silvery laughter. "I would scarcely expect you to work just from my description of him, which would hardly be objective, to say the very least. Once you meet my Galendur, I'm sure the right words would come to you in a veritable shower of inspiration."

At this, Gandalf cleared his throat and rose from his chair. "Bilbo," he said, "shall we go have a smoke and let these two young folks discuss their project without us old codgers hanging about?"

"I think that's the best idea I've heard all day," Bilbo said emphatically. I tightened my lips and glared at him, but he pretended not to notice. They smiled with roguish charm at Tilwen and excused themselves, and went to sit on the bench by the fountain and take out their pipes, no doubt having a huge laugh at my expense. I drew a deep breath.

"Umm…" I cleared my throat also. "Lady Tilwen…once more I thank you for this honor. But the idea of writing an…ode…to—really, I should think you could do it better yourself, being so much, well, closer to him and all. To be truthful, the thought of extolling the beauties and virtues of a male Elf is, well, somewhat embarrassing."

"I do write a bit of verse now and then," she looked very serious, "but it's rather silly girlish stuff, and would not begin to do him justice. I would so love to have something truly heroic, especially composed by the Savior of Middle-earth—that is how they refer to you, you know. I know he would be just, well, overwhelmed, and would know that what he went through himself has not been all in vain. Won't you consider it?"

I was the one who was overwhelmed. "Well," I hedged, "it seems I can only write well when I am in a bad way. When I'm quite on top of things, I'm afraid I only write silly drivel, too."

"Let me introduce him to you," she said, reaching across the table and laying her hand over my good one. "Once you see his manifold qualities, you could decide then?"

"Manifold," I couldn't help but smile. "You like that word, do you?"

"One of my favorites," she said radiantly. "I could give you a list of my favorite words, if you'd like. I have a good many of them. There's 'beleaguered' and 'resplendent' and 'happenstance' and 'resigned'…and, and lots of others."

"I used to like 'abominable'," I admitted and she giggled.

"I like that one too," she said, "although I suppose it wouldn't do for the Ode."

"There aren't many words that rhyme with it, either," I said. "All I can think of are 'abdominal' which would scarcely do, and 'phenomenal' which doesn't exactly rhyme but it's close, and…"

"Oh, that one would be perfect!" she exclaimed giving my fingers a little squeeze. "Maybe 'abominable' _could _go in there somehow. Let me see…. 'He smote the Enemy fully abominable/Then stood in the clear light of triumph phenomenal'…. Well, that's not very good, but it's the idea, you know?"

"Yes." Call me a fool, but I could think of no way to get out of this gracefully. Perhaps I could pull it off, who knows? I could do it to please her, at least. Surely Bilbo knew all manner of bardic songs I could use as a model. "Well…I shall do my best. Perhaps you could just describe your lover for me? I could…"

"Oh but you _must _meet him," she cried, clasping her hands together soulfully. "Any feeble efforts of mine would be but the palest shadow of his full true wonder. I'll try to bring him here tomorrow, and then you will see exactly what I mean. But I must get back now. The Ladies will surely wonder what I'm up to."

Well. I had done it now. I could only hope that her groom-to-be was really as inspiring as she claimed!

"Soooo, this is the Savior of Middle-earth," Galendur carelessly pushed a strand of fair hair behind one ear, in which a small gold ring sparkled, and blinked down at me in indulgent amusement. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, although you are cert-erm, I mean, glad to make your acquaintance—what's the name again?"

He looked to his beloved, rather than to me, cocking one reddish eyebrow in a manner he had no doubt found long ago had a devastating effect on the fair sex. He sported a tunic of crimson embroidered with gold and jewels over a snowy shirt with billowing ruffled sleeves, cut deeply in the throat, a black velvet cloak lined with gold silk and held with ruby clasps connected by a thick gold chain. A gemmed dagger was dramatically thrust into his gold belt. His fine leather boots had toes that looked sharply pointed enough to render the dagger superfluous, and heels so polished I could see my face in them.

"Iorhael," Tilwen prompted him, and I could hardly help but wonder what his reaction would have been if she had given him my hobbit-name. She beamed at me over his broad shoulder. Gandalf and Bilbo stood a ways behind me. I could just imagine their expressions at the moment.

"Iorhael. Of course. You must excuse me, I'm atrocious with names. Heard a few too many of 'em in my time, I fear. Anyway, my betrothed has spoken highly of you. And I always say, if she speaks well of someone, there must be some good in 'im, that's what I always say." He chuckled at his own joke, which, somehow, I just did not find terribly amusing. I forced a half-smile for Tilwen's sake. She giggled in obvious delight at her swain's wit. He glanced down at my feet for the umpteenth time. I was tempted to ask him if he wanted to draw a picture of them. That would have gone over wonderfully with Bilbo.

I took a deep breath. "Well, you, likewise, appear to measure up to her esteem of you," I said blandly, feeling like the crown prince of liars.

My main satisfaction, as the lovers took their leave, came when the peacock flew down from a tree with an angry squawk and pecked Galendur on the back of his knee, which produced quite a yelp. I rewarded the bird with the remainder of my tea-cake, then took several deep breaths as though I were about to plunge into cold, deep water, and sat down heavily on my padded chair. I wondered that it didn't collapse under me.

"Condescending jackass," Bilbo said between clenched teeth. "What can that sweet young thing possibly see in him? Other than his chiseled cheekbones, bulging biceps, washboard belly, and steel-blue orbs…say, you better write all those down. You could describe all his beauties thusly."

"I'm glad you noticed, because I missed them entirely," I said morosely. "'Steel-blue orbs'?"

"Eyes," Bilbo said. "But when writing heroic verse, you must call them orbs."

"Now you know what the bards have to put up with," Gandalf said with a wink, taking a swallow of his tea.

"Surely they at least _admire_ the heroes they sing of?" I said. "Or can at least…stomach them? What am I going to do now? I like Tilwen and I don't wish to disappoint her. But there is no way I can possibly extol the…virtues of that…person." I spat out the last word. "He doesn't even come close to being good enough for her! Conceited nitwit."

"Young love," said Gandalf shaking his head.

"'Sing, O bards, of a warrior glad and bold,'" said my irrepressible uncle, "'of Galendur, whose virtues and beauties were manifold...' Yes, it has possibilities, what say?"

"Yes, you write it, Bilbo," I said. "You definitely have the right idea."

"Look at the bright side," Gandalf chuckled. "It's only an ode, not an epic. Nice and short. Even Elves wouldn't have the patience to sit through anything of great length, not if it's about _that_ creature."

Elrond and Celebrían approached just then, arm in arm, and we filled them in on the nature of my current predicament.

"Alas, poor Tilwen," Lady Celebrían said shaking her golden head, her eyes glistening at the same time. "I'm terribly fond of the girl, but I must say, I think she's rather young to be committing herself. She has her whole life ahead of her, after all."

I should say she does, I thought. Lord Elrond smiled sympathetically.

"He _is _a hero, for all he appears some young fop who sat on the sidelines throughout the War, catching the ladies as they swooned in horror," he said. "Could you not concentrate on that aspect of him and try to forget what you dislike about him? He's a bit cocky of course, but he's young yet and will probably grow out of it. I remember well enough how my own sons were at that age."

"I suppose I have not much choice," I said, "since I've committed myself to write it. Well, as Gandalf said, at least it will be short, and as you say, he is a hero, and as such, is deserving of some esteem, whether I can abide him or not. Really, I've done much harder things. Oh, but wait! I know what I'll do. I'll write it about someone I _do_ admire. I'll leave the spaces for his name blank, and write it all down, and when I'm finished I'll just go through and write his name in the blanks. That might work."

"Ahhhh," Bilbo said snapping his fingers, "maybe you're onto something. So. Who will you write it about? Aragorn, perhaps?"

"Well, I did think of him but…what about Legolas? He has that kind of—of dash, but without the attitude. Yes…I think maybe it will work. Perhaps you can describe some of his feats in battle for me, Gandalf?"

"Actually I didn't really see any of them," Gandalf said. "I can tell you what I've heard, but I've a feeling some of them are a trifle…exaggerated. There was some wild tale about his taking down a mumak single-handedly, but I don't take much stock in it."

"No matter," I said, feeling much better all of a sudden. "No one will know the difference, I'm sure, except Galendur himself, and he surely won't deny. Fill me in!"


	6. The Door

Part VI: The Door

Finally I could go to the Temple. I could have gone before, of course, as much as I liked, but I wished to go in on my own feet, not be carried in like a tiny tot.

But first I needed a haircut. Lady Celebrian did the honors. We sat on the terrace, a large towel draped over my shoulders as she clipped away. Bilbo sat on a bench a way apart, smoking his pipe and watching with interest. There was a child with us—Tilwen's little niece, Lyrien. I say "little" although she would have been almost at eye-level with me had I been standing. She was the first Elf-child I had seen up close, save for an infant or two I had observed on ship. I'm sure her mother or aunt must have explained to her about hobbits, but I don't think it all had sunk in. Evidently no one had taught her it was rude to stare, but I didn't really mind such a pair of large lovely eyes looking at me so intently. She was looking mainly at my eyes, anyway.

"Why is your hair squiggly?" she asked. I smiled as charmingly as I could.

"All hobbits have squiggly hair," I said.

"Why?" she persisted.

"Because…hobbits live in holes in the ground, which have round doors and round windows, round hallways, round fireplaces, round everything. So—we end up with round hair."

I saw Bilbo double over on the bench, his shoulders shaking, and I felt rather pleased with myself. Lyrien looked at me with a delicious little half-smile, sunlight dancing in her eyes.

"Why is your hair two colors?" she put to me next. My eyebrows went upwards.

"Two colors?"

"Brown and silver. Look." She picked up a fallen curl and showed me. I examined it closely. I had thought the grey was gone from my hair—it looked so indoors, but out in the sunlight I could see there were a few strands remaining yet. "Why is it two colors?"

"Well, you see…" There is something in the masculine mind that seems completely averse to giving straight answers to the questions of children, and I regret to admit I was no different in that respect. I lowered my voice to a whisper: "When I was a baby, I swallowed a silver piece, and it made silver streaks come out in my hair."

The Lady laughed aloud. "Let's put ideas into the little one's head, shall we?" she said. I lowered my eyes sheepishly. "Don't listen to him, Lyrien."

The child giggled. "Your grandpa must have eaten a whole bag of silver pieces," she said looking wisely at Bilbo.

"He's not my grandpa," I laughed also. "He's my uncle—well, really he's my cousin, but I call him my uncle."

"Why?" she said. "If I had a cousin, I wouldn't call him my uncle."

"Because he likes it," I said. "He had no nephew and he wanted one, so he made me his nephew."

"Why?" the sweet one said. "Because you saved the world?"

"No," I laughed and the Lady nearly nicked my ear for giggling. "I was just a boy then. We had our birthdays on the same day, so he made me his nephew. I can't imagine why else he would, such a scamp as I was."

"I'll have an uncle soon," she said. "My auntie Tilwen is going to be married. So her husband will be my uncle."

"Yes, I know," I said. "Do you like him?"

"Yes," she replied promptly. "He brings me sweets sometimes. And once I saw him ride his horse backwards. He calls me Squinkles."

"_Squinkles_?" I couldn't help but laugh. "Why does he call you that?"

"I don't know," she giggled. "Do girl-hobbits have hair on their feet too?"

"They do indeed," I said.

"Why?" she said. I could hardly help but think, she out-hobbited hobbit-children for asking questions.

"Because if only the lads had foot-hair, the lasses would get jealous," I said, then wondered if I were going to get myself into hot water for that one. But Lyrien didn't seem to have heard my response. She had stooped to pick up another fallen lock.

"This one is so pretty," she said. "It has lots of silver in it. May I have it?"

"Yes, of course."

"May I have another for my friend?"

"You may have it all if you like," I said.

With a squeal of delight she began gathering up all the clippings. Tilwen and her sister, Niniel, came forward from the kitchen. Lyrien ran to them shouting, "Look, look, look, look! He gave me all his _hair_!" Her mother laughed.

"I hope this little one hasn't been pestering you to death with questions," she said to me. "Come, Lyrien, we must go."

"I want to say one thing to him first," the child pleaded. "Just one?"

"All right, but quickly," Niniel said. "Papa is waiting for us at the gate. We must go home and get ready for Temple."

Lyrien came to me, bent and whispered in my ear: "Thank you for saving the world!" then kissed my cheek noisily. Before I could respond, she skipped away, clutching my fallen curls in both hands.

One thing I had intended to do, although I knew Bilbo would never let me hear the end of it, was have a pair of shoes made for going to the Temple. Somehow I felt it would be unseemly to walk into the sacred building barefoot. I tried to explain this to him, and predictably, he had quite a whoop over it. Shoes! I'd be wanting a hat next, he said. He could see it all now: me swaggering into the Temple in fine leather boots with polished heels, and a hat with a great sweeping plume on it, big as you please. A fine sight for sore eyes I'd be. But after my encounter with Galendur, I had decided against the shoes.

As Bilbo and I dressed up, I felt both excited and apprehensive about getting out for the first time to see more of the Island. Bilbo took his time deciding what to wear. In his younger days he had been quite the clothes-horse, and although he no longer was so particular about what he wore, today he was in a flurry about it. I helped him choose a pair of ivory-colored breeches, a vest of a matching color with thread of gold and scarlet embroidered onto it, a red cravat, and an ivory-colored jacket over the whole. My outfit was light-grey with blue and silver woven into the vest, and a dark-blue cravat. As we inspected ourselves at the full-length mirror, we looked quite handsome, if I do say so. Hairy feet and all.

"We'll give that preposterous prancing pretty-boy something to stare at, so we will," Bilbo said, referring to Galendur. I laughed, at the same time wondering about Ríannor. I had meant to ask her to come to the Temple with us, but I hadn't seen her about in several days. I remembered asking the Lady Elwing about her a couple of days ago, why it was, she thought, Ríannor was resisting her treatment.

"It's because she has not yet found the Door," she said as we sat by the fountain. She was cutting up roots and herbs for the day's dinner, and I was helping. She did most of the cooking in the household, because she liked to cook and the others did not. I was a pretty fair cook, myself, but it was hard for me to help in the kitchen because it wasn't hobbit-sized. I did my part, however.

"The Door?" I said. Sometimes it was hard for me to keep my mind on what I was doing when she was there, and I had to be careful not to cut myself. I had done so once already. Quite deeply, and it had to be stitched. Ouch.

"Yes," she looked seriously at me. She usually wore earthy tones of brown or green or gold, and in that she differed from her granddaughter, who favored blue and dark red and silver-grey. Sometimes the colors she wore made a gold-copper light in her dark eyes. "The Door that leads into the Light. Each must find it, and there is no one way to do so. It is like solving a puzzle, I suppose. One tries and keeps trying, then suddenly, the answer appears when one least expects it, and then all is light. That is the gateway into Eternity."

"How can we help her to find it?" I asked.

"Only by keeping at her side," she said. "We cannot find it for her. We can give her lights, but the Door is hidden—and it appears when we least expect it. Sometimes when you write poetry, do you ever find you cannot think of the right idea, the exact phrasing, however hard you try, and you put it aside for a while, then one day when you are not looking for it, it comes to you, and you know it is exactly right? Finding the Door is somewhat like that."

"How long do you think it will take her?" I asked. I was worried, to be truthful. What if she never found it?

"No one can say," she said, not surprisingly. "But I think it will not be so long."

That was when I decided to go to the Temple. I would go and offer a prayer that Ríannor would somehow find the Door and find it soon. I could pray here at the house, of course. There was a small room on the second floor made especially for that purpose, and I visited it frequently. It was tiny and full of candles, and one window sharply pointed at the top, full of crystal panes that threw colored lights on the walls and ceiling. But I thought it might be more effectual if I went into the Temple to do so, even though I still felt shy of getting out in public.

Still, I was getting rather sick of the confinement, so I found my spirits rising as we gathered into an open carriage. Ríannor was not among us, nor was the Lady Galadriel.

Gandalf drove, Bilbo and I sitting right behind him. It was a fine morning, all silver and gold in the trees. We drove past splendid houses, made mostly of white or pale-gold or a very light pink stone, shingled in what appeared to be silver or gold. Flowers grew everywhere in immaculately cultivated gardens. There were bell-towers, many of them, with onion-shaped golden domes atop, and crystal windows, and beautiful mosaic patterns laid into the walls in soft light colors. I saw fountains, dozens of them, paved in white or colored marble, and I wondered where the water came from and where it went. And waterfalls, coming from unexpected sources. There were statues, representing the Valar, I was sure. I saw poles with lamp-globes atop, pure white in cages of intricate gold. And more gardens. And walkways paved in glossy squares. There were many people about, some walking, others riding. Couples strolled arm in arm, children darted about, some of them playing in the street, some leaning into the fountains to catch the water and splashing each other. They shouted and pointed as we rode past.

The City was completely and irrevocably alive. Bilbo looked thoroughly enchanted.

Then I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Lady Elwing.

"We'll soon come to the Tree," she whispered. She was dressed in gold. I gave an excited wriggle.

We came to a garden that was even more resplendent than the others, and yes, I could see it already—the Tree, much bigger and taller than the one in Minas Tirith, all in glimmering fragrant bloom, right in the midst. If only Sam could see all this….

And straight ahead was the Temple. I had not seen it, of course, since the day of my arrival, and I had not seen much of it then, the state I was in-could not remember seeing it at all. It was of rose-white stone that looked almost transparent but was not so, a huge golden dome atop flanked by two smaller pointed ones, and many towers and buttresses, peaked windows at the front and sides. Doves and pigeons abounded. And of course there was a fountain out front, a very wide one with small bridges over it. The largest fountain, in the middle, was studded with precious stones and mosaic-work in onyx and nacre and enamel, with a large globe atop, made of some alabaster stone like a giant pearl. Small flowering shrubs and benches surrounded it. I could hear music all around, some of it from the bells, and some of it human voices, I could not tell from where. The voices were not in exact harmony with the bells, it was as there were several different songs being sung all at once and yet they did not clash; it had a strange and haunting, other-worldly effect, as two or three different realms that were of themselves yet in perfect accord with one another.

And I could swear that some of the music was coming from the waters of the fountain.

And the Temple itself! I can hardly begin to describe its glories. The stone was carved in the most intricate lacy patterns, set with moonstone and black and white and cream-colored onyx and lapis, bricks of gold laid all around the doorways and windows. The door was of polished ebony inlaid with more gold and gems. The windows were of a translucent creamy glass etched in swirls and floral designs, paned in beaten gold. I felt tiny indeed, and very humble, and at the same time foolish to think I would be so conspicuous in the light of all this glory.

I looked at Bilbo to see how he was taking all this in, and his reaction was as I thought it would be. Here he had thought he had seen all the wonders of the world. I was overwhelmed to think I was so privileged in being allowed to come here at all, flawed and tiny mortal as I was, the first ever as was permitted entry into this realm.

I think maybe I had found the Door myself.

I was not prepared for the cheering that broke out in the crowd as Bilbo and I were assisted down from the carriage by Gandalf. A small bevy of maidens—priestesses as I could see by the snow-white robes embroidered in silver that they all wore-came bearing bunches of lilies and roses. Bilbo, Gandalf and I were each given a bunch. The singing grew louder and the bells chimed ecstatically as we were ushered inside.

I don't know which was more glorious, the interior or the exterior. The ceiling was surely at least a hundred feet high, vaulted and carved, and very tall slender pillars stood about inlaid with more mosaics of colored stone and jewels, and the glass in the windows made me dizzy to think how much work had gone into arranging the bits into such complicated and symmetrical patterns. And there were candle-holders all around, dozens of them, and little trees growing in front of the windows, all in flower. More ebony doors led into the sanctuary, which was set with polished wooden benches, and in the midst was a high lectern. And surely I had never seen so many candles in one place. How did they keep them all lighted?

The service began with a hymn sung by a choir that I could not see until I looked up and saw many Elves in balconies lining the walls, holding candles and singing, and bells and harps and flutes softly played with their music, and a sweet scent floated up from the middle of the room. Then a tall Elf stood at the lectern and said that if there were any who wanted to request a prayer they might come forward. Several came, speaking too softly for me to hear, and then after a slight hesitation, I rose and went to stand in line. When my time finally came the priest looked very pleased to see me, and smiled as I gave my request. I was trembling a little when I sat down again, but I felt wonderful. A couple of women brought babies and asked for blessings on them. A couple who were soon to be married came and asked that their union be consecrated.

And I thought of the poem I had been asked to compose, and knew I could never write it now. No false notes were possible here.

I don't know how long the service lasted; an hour, maybe two. I could have sat there all day. I felt a part of all music and all brilliance and all truth and worlds and knowing, and that everything I had suffered was so far behind me, I would never be able to see it however much I looked back.

When I came back home again, I looked around for Ríannor but still did not see her about. I saw that the door of her bedroom was cracked, peered in, but did not see her. So I silently padded in and left the flowers I had been given on her pillow, then left. Later, after dinner, I went upstairs again, on a thought, and approached the door of her workroom. It was partially open, which surprised me, and a light burned within. As if she had been expecting me, she emerged and said, "Come in, Iorhael."

I entered, and saw that she had an easel set up, and what looked like an enormous plate propped on it. On the plate a beautiful face was painted. I took it to be her own at first, but on closer inspection I could see the features had a more masculine cast. To one side I could see there were gold letters very lightly painted: ARASIRION.

She looked at me in a helpless darkness, tears standing in her eyes. Then she spoke in a voice that seemed to come from a million miles behind me, yet I heard them as though they were inside my own head: "I do not know who he is. He came to me as from a wet window atop a great stair. Yet I know him not."

I felt chills run all over me even as my throat tightened. If she had forgotten her son, how could she have painted his portrait? And although it seemed the gift of forgetting was finally taking effect, she was still lost. She had not found the Door. Yet, perhaps she now had the key?

I noticed that some of the pottery she had shown me was missing.

Then she held up her left arm to me, saying, "Do you see this?" She pushed back her sleeve, showing me the number on her wrist. I could not tell if the mark was made in ink or whether it was a brand of some sort. I was a little afraid to touch it.

"You cannot remove it, can you," she said. It wasn't even a question. I shook my head.

"Perhaps it can be taken off somehow," I offered. "I could ask Lord Elrond…"

"He is gone, gone, and I know not who he is," she said, then I realized she was referring to the portrait of her son before her. I felt a little sick. I wanted to go, but could not just leave her sitting there.

Then I heard my own voice saying, "Lady Ríannor…resist him." She looked up at me and a couple of tears escaped her eyes. "Resist him. Do not let him hold you back. You must never let him have you."

I kissed the mark on her wrist, then laid my hand over it. "Do not let him keep you in the shadow," I said. She was trembling and so was I. And finally she laid her hand over mine.

"There is no light in the Void," she whispered.


	7. Writer's Block

Part VII: Writer's Block

The wedding was in two weeks, and I still had not written a word. Well, actually, I had, but the words had a way of not staying on the paper.

"What rhymes with 'orbs'?" I asked Bilbo, who was studying a map. I still didn't know what it was with my uncle and maps. Surely he wasn't planning on going anywhere? "Besides 'absorbs'?"

"What say?" He looked up blankly.

"Never mind, Uncle," I said gently. "I don't think I should use the word 'orbs' in this poem anyway. To my way of thinking, it means…erm…well, balls."

"Does it now?" Bilbo nearly dropped his pipe. "Well-sticklebats! Never thought of that before."

"So I hardly think it would be seemly to use it in a poem read by a young lady in the Temple," I grinned. Bilbo chuckled.

"No, I suppose not," he agreed. "Now on the wedding night, with the two of them alone, would be a whole different matter. Hmph—I'll never hear a poem with 'orbs' in it the same way again!"

"Now Uncle," I laughed aloud and pointed a finger playfully at him, then sobered. "Actually I don't want to say 'eyes' either. It just doesn't sound...warlike. What about 'his flashing steely gaze'?"

"Sounds good to me," he said nodding.

"'His flashing steely gaze/Held all in deep amaze'—how's that?"

"Perfect. You can rhyme a lot of things with 'gaze' now. Haze, raze, graze, craze, slays, daze, blaze…forays…praise…trays…."

"I still need to work in 'beleaguered.' She said I didn't have to include _all _her favorite words, but that one was at the top of the list, and I think she'd want it in there somewhere. But I can think of nothing that rhymes with it."

"'Disfigured,'" Bilbo offered.

"That doesn't rhyme," I fretted.

"Comes close. Let's see now…'E'en while sore beleaguered/By monsters full disfigured'…Well, you could probably do much better than that, but the rhyme works, I should think."

"'Lugubrious'—whatever does _that _mean? I don't think I'd better even try to use it."

"Blessed if I know. That's the thing with lasses—they know too many words."

I scratched around for a while. I had written many poems in the past month, some excellent, some dreadful, most of them falling somewhere in between the two extremes. I wrote of things I knew, of friendship, dreams, loss, war, love, horror, beauty, striving, hope, royalty, fear, courage, illness, atonement, sacrifice, renewal, mercy, peace. I wrote letters to Sam and read them softly aloud when Bilbo was asleep, holding my glass close to my lips, and I swear I could feel it grow warm and glow in my hand, with a faint pale golden light.

But! I. Could. Not. Write. This. Ode. I wrote page after page, line after line, metaphor after metaphor, strophe after strophe. Finally I stood up, took what I had been scrawling for nearly two hours, and ripped it in two, then four, then into dozens of tiny pieces. Bilbo, who had dozed off, came to with a start.

"What the?" He looked at me in puzzlement.

"This is without a doubt the biggest piece of twaddle that was ever committed to paper," I exclaimed, dramatically flinging the butchered tribute into the air. "I can't write this! What do I know about being in a battle anyway? I simply cannot allow this, this _monstrosity_ to be read in the Temple-I'll positively throw up! I'll write something else. It won't be what she had in mind exactly, but—"

Just then we jumped as a door slammed. I heard Tilwen's voice, and while I could not make out the words, I could tell she was plenty upset. Bilbo looked at me questioningly, and I sprang up, absently brushing the flakes of ode off my clothing, then went out to the terrace and peered in the direction of the kitchen. Then I saw her coming in my direction. She was in tears.

"Iorhael—the wedding is OFF!" she cried. "Oh—oh—how COULD he!" She burst out afresh. I took her hand and led her to the table and helped her to a seat. Lady Celebrian hovered nearby, smoothing down Tilwen's hair and trying to calm her.

"What happened?" I said. Bilbo hobbled out also, saying, "Well, I never!"

"I'm NOT going to marry that-that!" Tilwen wailed. I could not help but notice she wore an exceptionally pretty blue dress that looked new. "I—I—I'll die a maid first! Iorhael, I'm s-sorry, I know you worked long and hard on the p-p-poem, but…it won't be, it won't be…ohhh!"

"What is it, dear?" Lady Celebrian said, sitting down beside her and putting an arm across her shoulders. Tilwen raised her head and looked up at me. "Here, just take a few deep breaths and calm yourself a little. Have you and Galendur quarreled? These things happen, you know. I'm sure we can work it out. The main thing is to—"

"It wasn't a quarrel exactly," Tilwen sniffled. "I…I, well, you see, I and Mother and Niniel were working on my new clothes, and the things they were going to wear to the wedding? And, and I tried on this one I'm wearing, and I liked it so much I didn't want to take it off again? Well, I went to my best friend Vivien's to show it to her, and on my way back, well, I thought maybe I'll just go by Galendur's while I'm at it—yes, I know I was supposed to save it till after the wedding, but I just couldn't resist. So I took the long way. No, I really wasn't going in, I was just going to ride by on the chance that he might be looking out. But, but I heard his voice out in his garden with some of his friends and so I slipped up around the drive and hid myself in some bushes, thinking to surprise him. And I heard—I heard!"

"Heard what, dear?" Lady Celebrian felt about her person for a handkerchief. I produced one from my vest-pocket.

Tilwen looked tragically at me. "He was talking about YOU!" she burst out. "He was saying the—the most awful _things_—I won't repeat them, but how COULD he! He was just going on and, and laughing, and saying how we—you and I-had a, a _thing_ going on—did you ever hear anything so ridiculous?—and how he was going to come after you, and, and—oh, you'd better hide, there's no telling what…."

"How could he, indeed!" Lady Celebrian flushed hotly. "And he certainly won't get past our gate. The idea!"

"And then he started in on ME," Tilwen cried. "He said I-I was a dear little goose of a thing, and, and, well, I won't say what else, it wasn't quite decent, and…well, anyway, I just popped out and marched right up to him and told him the wedding was off, I'd rather marry an orc, and I told him some other things, and he came toward me, and tripped and fell flat on his _face, _and made a perfect _spectacle_ of himself…but NOW what am I going to do?"

"The nerve of that…creature," I fumed. "You are well rid of him, I should say, Lady Tilwen. You can do much better."

"I never liked him from the get-go, the big oaf," Bilbo declared. "Even the peacock didn't like him. Yes, you can do better, that's what I say."

"He—he came later to my house," Tilwen continued, "and apologized, telling me he'd had too much to drink and didn't mean anything he said. He said something about a, a drinking game, that his chums put him up to, and he said, Iorhael, that he was just jealous of you because you destroyed the Ring and he didn't, and because you were my friend, and he, he didn't mean it about how he was coming after you, and he'd come beg your pardon, and he said he loved me, and…but, well, he just isn't what I thought he was, and I…I…" She blew her nose rather loudly.

"If he blames his friends for getting him drunk, says indecent things about you to them, and doesn't like for you to have friends," I said, "then he isn't even half good enough for you, and you are right to call off the wedding. I'm so sorry this happened. But you have all the time in the world to find someone more worthy of you."

I knew that didn't make her feel one bit better, and I probably sounded unbearably pompous, and my worse half was blaming myself for her unhappiness. But, I had to say it.

"Let me take you home," Lady Celebrian said as Tilwen laid her head down on her arms, sobbing. "You needn't work today, we can manage. Let's get you home and you can rest a bit, and…"

After they had gone, I plopped down in her chair with a sigh. Bilbo looked at me thoughtfully.

"Looks like you're off the hook now, my lad," he said. "Poor lass. She'll get over him, I'm sure. But…it's a shame."

Three days later, Tilwen came back to the house. But no one could bring a smile to her face. Sometimes she cried as she worked, and the Lady had to end up sending her home. Once she asked me if I had ever known the taste of despair. Galendur came over once, unknown to me at the time, and Lord Elrond and Gandalf sent him packing, or so I heard.

And then I got an idea. A crazy idea, but I got it, and it stuck.

Galendur's house was not very large, but it was elegant as all houses were here. He lived there with his father, Lord Elrond explained to me, who was also a war hero. His mother had been a mortal woman, and had died long ago. He had a couple of older brothers, but they lived elsewhere. As the youngest, he was perhaps a bit spoiled, but he really was a hero, Elrond assured me, despite my intial impression.

"Do you want me to go in with you?" he asked as we stopped at the gate and he took me down from his horse.

"No, I think not," I said. "It would be better if I went alone, I'm sure. I'm not afraid of him."

"Very well then," Lord Elrond said smiling. "I'll go sit over there in the park, just in case. Galendur has his rough edges, but I think there's no real harm in him. But call me if you need me. I'll hear you."

I heard Galendur's voice around the back, so I headed that way instead of the front door. He sounded as though he were talking to a horse; then I heard a soft whinny. There was a short flight of steps leading up to the side door, and I started up them on a run, and met him coming right out from the stable in back. It was then that I stepped on a broken place…and fell right over backwards.

"Oh, bugger!" I heard him say, then he rushed down the steps to where I had fallen. "Why, if it isn't the Ringbearer! Are you hurt? Here, let me…Damn, we've been meaning to get that step fixed since we came here, and seems we just never get around to it. Waiting for someone to break their neck on it, I suppose. Dreadful sorry, old chap…."

"My neck is fine," I said sitting up, wincing, "but I think I've turned my ankle."

"Have you now? Here, don't stand up. Sit on the step and let me have a look." He actually knelt and took my left leg with surprising gentleness in one hand. "Can you wiggle your toes? Ah, good. Nothing broken. Does it hurt much?"

"Not so very. I'm not good with stairs, and I certainly shouldn't have been running up them. I—"

"Let me see if I've something to wrap it. I did learn a thing or two in the army besides cleaving orc heads, you know. Here, let me lift you up so…" He gathered me up and hauled me right up the steps, then set me down on a long chair overlooking a very fine garden. "Sit tight and I'll be right out." He disappeared into an archway and I noticed his horse, standing nearby watching with interest. A coal-black, splendid beast with a white blaze down his muzzle, and white hind feet. I smiled up admiringly at him and he whickered but did not come near. Presently Galendur returned with a roll of cloth and a bottle of liniment.

"It's not exactly bandaging material, but it's the best we've got at the moment," he said. "Canvas, nice and stiff. It'll do until we can get you back home. Here, I'm getting my blade out to slice this, easy does it, there..." He cut the canvas into strips with his dagger, doused it with the liniment, then began wrapping my ankle with surprising skill. "There now. Is that comfortable?"

"Yes, that's good," I said truthfully. He looked at me with sheepish eyes, not exactly steely in the moment.

"So," he said, "have you seen Tilwen today? I guess she told you all about how she came here and caught me talking rubbish with some chums and all? Of course I didn't mean a word of it. We were all three sheets to the wind, you know, and I'm a perfect ass when I'm drunk. She shouldn't slip up on a fellow like that, it's dangerous. I've been trying to come and make it up with her, in fact was going right out to try again when you showed up, but her mum keeps shutting the door in my face. I suppose I've totally bollixed things up and she hates me now." He sighed.

"I don't think she hates you," I said. "That's why I'm here, in fact. I…" My hand went to my vest pocket. "I want to read something to you. She asked me to write a poem as a wedding gift to you—that's what we've been about. She wanted me to extol your manifold virtues, and she was going to read it at the wedding. This isn't exactly what she had in mind, but I'd like to read it anyway…."

"A poem? wedding gift?" Galendur sat down and patted his horse's neck absently, and he did have the grace to blush. "As I said, I'm a blithering idiot when I'm drunk, and I truly didn't mean any of that hogwash I spouted. I never once thought you and she had a 'thing' going on, that was all a stupid joke, but the poor silly dear took me seriously. And I had absolutely no intention of coming after you, except to beg your pardon, and they wouldn't let me through the gate—quite understandably, of course, after what I-You really think she doesn't hate me? She really pitched into me that day. You can be glad you weren't there. Then again, maybe you wish you had been. I'm sure my friends are having a good howl about it. That's one of the things I like best about her, though. She's got spunk. I haven't much use for your mealy-mouthed milky maidens, they get tiresome very quickly. But Til now, she's a filly of a whole different color. A ball of fire. Do you really think I've still a chance, and I haven't buggered it up totally?"

Maybe this fellow was worth saving after all, I thought. If he loved Tilwen for what she was and didn't want to change her…and I liked the fact that he'd attended to my ankle before asking after her.

But… "You didn't really say indecent things about her, did you?" I said. He blushed once more and looked at his boots.

"Well…I think I did say something to the effect that her breasts were like ripe apples, or pears or…or some such nonsense, but that's all. We fellows get up to all kinds of idiocy when we've had a few drinks and think no ladies are listening, but most of us mean no harm by it. And my bachelor days were fast coming to an end, and I wouldn't be able to indulge myself in such foolishness much longer. The dear creatures just need to come to terms with the fact that when we do our business, it stinks, you know?"

"Umm…I don't think you'd better put it that way to her," I said with a little snort.

"Of course not, but you get the point. They expect a bit much of us, that's all."

"You expect much of them, don't you?"

"Yes, but that's different. But you know, just between you and me and my horse, Elf-ladies aren't all necessarily as proper as they're made out to be. I've overheard some of them saying things to each other about their husbands that fairly knocked me on my backside from the shock. Actually I wouldn't mind it if Til were to talk so about me with her girlfriends—I'd be a bit disappointed if she didn't, in fact. Don't fellows get up to that sort of thing where you come from?"

"Yes, I suppose we do." I had to smile. I withdrew my hand from my pocket. I didn't think he was much interested in my poem. Then on the other hand…I took the piece of paper out and unfolded it, and began to read.

_Your steely gaze met a beacon's blaze__  
__On a mountain-top swaddled in troll-grey_  
_In a cloud of wonder you heard war's thunder_  
_Swords clashing, boulders crashing_  
_A tattered flag far away;_  
_Black breath, leering death,_  
_Fiery spears, icy fears_  
_Your friends fell day by day_  
_Each wore your face in the flaming space_  
_The next was you, as you well knew_  
_Resigned, you learned to pray._

_Comrades united, to fever incited_  
_Screaming cities in the brimstone haze_  
_Catapults spat their scorn in your lap_  
_Trees groaned, cleavers honed_  
_Youth spilled in night's putrid maze_  
_Streets beleaguered, statues disfigured_  
_Valor fades in invisible shades_  
_You groped for doors in pathless ways…._

"It isn't finished yet," I said looking down at the sheet of parchment that showed signs of overmuch handling. "It's not very good, I know. And hardly appropriate for a wedding either, but…"

"You're not well, are you?" he asked me. I couldn't tell whether or not he had really heard what I'd read to him.

"I have cancer," I said tucking the paper back into my pocket. "If I had not come here, I would surely have been dead by now."

"Oh, sh—I mean, Til didn't tell me that," he stammered, and I could swear he looked a bit pale.

"I think she doesn't know," I smiled. "And I'm much better now. In fact, I'm probably mostly over it, but it will be a while before I'm able to live on my own."

"You don't look dying exactly," he said. "Just kind of, well, transparent around the edges. You have the look of someone who's got one foot in another world, if you know what I mean. I didn't see that at the first, but I'm starting to now."

"Well, it's not _this_ foot," I said, rising, careful of my left ankle, and he chuckled. "Maybe we should go back now. I'm sure they'll let you in if I'm with you."

"This is so bloody good of you," he said, coming over to assist me. "I'm forever in your debt. Here, let's take my horse here. He's a fine fellow. His name is Nightwind."

"It's a beautiful name," I said in some surprise.

"I didn't name him. He came with it. But I worship the ground he trots on. Don't I, old fellow?" I laughed as he loudly kissed the horse's muzzle. "Come on, let's go!"


	8. Unveiling

Part VIII: Unveiling

"Sounds like she's letting him have it," Bilbo chuckled as the voices resounded in the front parlor, through the hallway and into our room. "I hope so, anyway!"

I strained my ears to hear. I could hear Tilwen's voice, all right, but couldn't make out her words, which was maybe just as well, judging from the tone. Then I heard Galendur's, evidently trying to reason with her. I smiled remembering how she had run straight to him with a cry of joy and flung herself in his arms when he first walked into the door with me in tow. But now…well, I could go listen at the door, perhaps, but that wouldn't be seemly.

"Whatever possessed you to go charging out there in the first place?" Bilbo demanded of me. "I still can't believe you pulled such a thing. Soft, that's what you are. Can't bear to see a pretty maid unhappy. But I dare say you've only made things worse. He'll just end up breaking her heart all over again, wait and see."

"I wasn't going to do it at first," I admitted. "It _was_ crazy, I knew. But I felt such a powerful urge, and when that kind of urge won't go away, then I must. Nothing for it."

"Hmph. Nothing for it, indeed. Maybe one of these days you'll learn not to go poking your nose where it doesn't belong."

"Hmm, now where have I heard that before?" I teased him.

"You'll end up like your Auntie Dora, you will. Going about handing out advice to the lovelorn till the end of your days. You'll see."

"Aren't you even a little bit proud of me, Bilbo?" I tried to look sad.

"I'm a lot proud of you, but that's beside the point."

Gandalf came in from outside, grinning, and asked how the ankle was. I said it was much better, and asked if he could hear what was going on in the front room.

"I don't hear anything now," he said. "Maybe that's a good sign," he added with a wink.

I sauntered over closer to the door, then cautiously peered into the hallway. I couldn't hear anything either. I padded silently over to the door of the salon and pressed my ear to it. Not a sound.

"I think they've gone out," I said to Bilbo and Gandalf, in some disappointment, yet with a feeling of hope too.

"She gave him the gate," Bilbo said. "Good for her. She's got more sense than I gave her credit for." He popped a fist into his palm.

"She's gone too," I reminded him.

"Home to her mother, I should hope."

We went outside and I told of my visit with Galendur in more detail. It was quite late in the afternoon, getting on for suppertime. The sun was low in the sky.

"He rides really well," I said. "When we were riding home through the street, a dog ran out barking at us and Nightwind shied and nearly threw us, and took off at full gallop. Galendur got him under control quickly. Although not before he cleared a wagon full of apples and a flock of goats crossing the road," I chuckled.

"I don't doubt he can ride a horse," Bilbo said. "But it hardly makes him husband material."

"Little Lyrien adores him," I said. "She says he takes her on his back and gives her bouncy rides and tells her funny stories. He loves little children."

"Baiting the calf to catch the cow, I shouldn't wonder."

"He told me about when his mother died. He was just a lad. His father and brothers were away at war and his horse was lame. She was sick with pneumonia and he carried her nearly ten miles to the healer's, and she died right there in his arms. It was very sad."

"Just listen to you, lad. You're as taken with him as that girl is. The fellow's a natural-born-"

Bilbo broke off and looked at Gandalf, who was looking upward now and didn't appear to have heard anything we were saying. I looked up too. And sucked in my breath sharply.

Ríannor stood on the balcony above the library, wearing a dress of dark rich red. The color suited her to perfection, but that was not what stopped our breath. There was a faint, soft glow about her against the dim curtain behind her. Her ebony hair had a sheen and ripple that had not been there before. She was looking intently down at us and it seemed that she smiled, almost. I could not have looked away if I forced myself.

"By all the Valar," I heard Gandalf say. "Did you ever see anything lovelier?"

"She wants us to come in," I said softly. "I think she has something to show us."

Gandalf was already standing. I rose too, then extended a hand to help Bilbo up. We entered through the library and into the hallway, then saw her coming down the spiral staircase in the middle. I can swear the crimson velvet of her gown glowed like a rose in the sun as it trailed on the stairs behind her. And yes, she was smiling as though she had some lovely secret she was about to disclose.

"Come into the salon," she said, for all the world like a hostess ushering her guests into the party room. We followed as adoring subjects after their queen. Giddily, I wondered where the others were. Well, there was Lady Galadriel, already in the front parlor, and she was in white, and all aglow, herself. Evidently she was in on the secret. Then the others entered behind us, Lord Elrond and his wife and mother, who all seemed as mystified as we.

There was something in the middle of the parlor, covered with a white sheet. Something large, sitting on an easel. I heard someone else come into the room also, but did not look around to see who it was. I was less curious about the work that was about to be unveiled than I was about Lady Ríannor's appearance.

I had suggested a few days ago, to Lady Galadriel, that I thought Sauron was using the memory of Ríannor's son to hold her back, since once she found the Door she would be free of him. I even speculated that perhaps Sauron was trying to force me to succumb to him through her in some twisted way. Since he could no longer reach me, perhaps he was trying to torment me by keeping her in the shadow. For I loved her in a way that was hard to explain. Not as a lover, although there was perhaps a small element of that in my feelings. Not as a son; she was as unlike my mother as any woman could have been, yet not unlike a son either. It was as a friend, yet something more. I told the Lady all this, and she did not seem surprised.

"Perhaps you are right," she said, "about Sauron. The mind of evil is something the rest of us will never completely discern. It is an eternal hunger, an insatiable longing for the annihilation of others, and in some strange way, for the destruction of itself. Its favorite prey is the good and beautiful, for to destroy and subvert it is its ultimate revenge on the source of all goodness and beauty. Yes, perhaps Ríannor is his link to you, for once she finds her way into the Light, you will be forever lost to him."

"What if she does not?" I felt a chill shake me all over. I had thought I was safe here. But those who love are never safe, and the Enemy knows it well.

"Then we must remove her from you in some way," she said. "Or you from her. We have prepared a place for you, although we had not intended to put you there until you were fully recovered. Still, if she does not find her way out of her inner darkness, we may have no choice but to remove you sooner."

I thought of what she had said as I stood now in the front parlor awaiting the unveiling of the new work. Had Lady Ríannor finally found her way out…or was this maybe a false dawn?

No one spoke. Then Ríannor and Galadriel each took a corner of the cloth covering the easel, and slowly pulled it upward and then let it fall on the floor. And a collective gasp went up, and the whole room seemed full of light.

Bilbo was the only one who spoke. "My lad," he said barely above a whisper, "will you look at that. I declare."

Everyone else was completely speechless. The picture was a mosaic, in a hexagonal shape, about four feet wide and four feet high. There was a head haloed in a flaming white light, and a hand held a phial like to mine, only larger. The background was made of chips in two shades of dark blue and black, obviously representing a night sky, and a white gemstone represented the evening star, with bits of silver and crystal raying around it. Smaller gems were inlaid about to represent other stars. Now I knew what had become of the pottery I had noticed missing. I remembered in particular a vase of a striking shade of brown with tiny flakes of gold and bronze and copper worked into the glaze in a swirling pattern. I could see those flakes in the hair, glittering in the light.

No silver.

The skin was made of ivory and the garment of lighter blues than the background, the eyes of the same chips as the garment. And the light raying around-I recognized that as chips of the white tower I couldn't look upon, and I was sure she had painted them with some sort of snowy glaze. It was inlaid now as a pure white fire, and there were tiny bits of gold and scarlet gleaming outside of it. And yes, there was the Evenstar pendant at the throat, a diamond with a filigree of silver. She must have used her own jewelry for this, I thought, barely able to breathe. And I noticed in the background a rose-tree with two golden blooms on it, one a bud, the other fully blown. And worked in gold in beautiful letters at the bottom of the portrait: IORHAEL. I wondered if anyone could hear my heart pounding.

I felt tears start in my eyes but did not notice immediately when they spilled over. Finally I dared to look at Bilbo, who had his arm tightly around my waist; he was trembling and pale, and tears stood in his eyes also. I felt a hand laid on my shoulder for a moment; I thought it was Gandalf, but I saw him standing on the other side of Bilbo, so I glanced to my left and saw it was Galendur. He was staring at the portrait with parted lips, in the most absolute stillness I had ever seen, his hand resting as softly as a bird on my shoulder, Tilwen on his other side, clutching his other hand but looking only at the mosaic. I looked to Gandalf once again and saw him look at Ríannor, then the picture, then at its creator again. I couldn't tell at which he was looking the hardest, or the longest.

I became aware of very soft music, although no one was playing any; I could not tell from whence it issued or if anyone else was hearing it. It was unlike any I had ever heard before, and seemed to be coming from a great Door somewhere, as if light had a voice, and it was full of wings also, and bells, and drums, and I really think everyone in the room heard it. And amid the Music I heard for just a moment a despairing cry, the howl of someone who has just lost all he had striven so long and hard to gain, the sound of utter defeat. But the cry died away quickly and the Music overpowered it and went out of the house and into the streets, and whether or not any others heard it I never knew, but it filled the house, and the phial in the picture began to shine as though it had caught a ray of sunlight. Ríannor was like a window made of black and white and ruby glass studded with gold and pearls, and I was looking more at her than anything else, and so were the others now, I believe.

She was as the first woman on the first morning of all creation, standing tall in the birthday of Eternity, leading upward.

The wedding was the loveliest I had ever seen—after Sam's. Tilwen read aloud a short poem of her own composing, which had nothing to do with war yet was entitled "My Hero." The groom got teary-eyed over it, and he grabbed her and planted a big kiss on her before the priest could pronounce them husband and wife.

A few days before the wedding, Tilwen's sister Niniel had come over with Lyrien to help out with things and the elfling came running straight at me shouting my name. I noticed something odd with her hair as she threw herself at me in the sunlight shouting, "LOOK, LOOK, LOOK!" I held her back and looked as hard as I could and she grabbed a handful of her own locks and held it right in front of me.

"Your hair is squiggly!" I said and she nodded so hard, her neck seemed in danger of snapping.

"GUESS who did it!" she cried, bouncing up and down so that she stepped on my feet.

"Not your mum, I suppose," I said and she shook her head emphatically. "Your auntie then?" Another shake. "Your granny?"

"Noooo," she said pulling a face.

"Your daddy?"

"No!" Giggles.

"I give up then. Who?"

Just then Galendur came right up behind her. She turned her head and looked up at him, then yelled at the top of her voice, "MY UNCLE! Well, he's almost my uncle!"

I stared up at Galendur with lifted eyebrows, and he lifted his eyebrows back at me.

"So how am I for a hairdresser?" he said. "Am I a bit of all right, or what?"

"Well…you certainly have some talents I didn't know about," I admitted as Lyrien grabbed his arm and he lifted her up and held her with one arm and rumpled up her squiggles, and she gave him a loud smacking kiss on the cheek.

"When I was a little chap, I used to watch my mother curl her hair when she was getting ready to go out for special," he explained. "She'd wind locks of it around bits of rag and tie it all up for a few hours, then take it down and there you were. The memory of it stayed with me a long time."

Bilbo shook his head. "You better hope you haven't started something," he said. "You might end up having to curl every lady's hair on the Island."

Lyrien squirmed down from her soon-to-be uncle's arms and came back to me. "I almost forgot, this is for you," she said handing me something wrapped in a handkerchief. "I made it," she said with a little giggle, adding modestly, "I hope you like it."

"Let's go sit down here," I motioned for her to come to my long chair. I just had a feeling I didn't want all the others staring when I opened it. We both sat down apart from the others and I untied the handkerchief. Inside was a small rag-doll…with some of my clipped curls sewn to the head. A face was embroidered on, obviously a child's work but that of one much older than Lyrien, surely. There were even tiny pointed ears, of like size. And a little suit of clothes, simply done, and yes…foot hair, glued on.

"It's YOU," she informed me. "Do you _see_?"

"You made this all yourself?" I said incredulously.

"My mummy helped me a little," she admitted. "She sewed the hair on. But I did all the rest. Smell it!"

She shoved it to my nose for me. I could smell fragrant herbs, with which it was obviously stuffed.

"This is the prettiest doll I ever saw," I said choking up. "Thank you so much." I gave her a big kiss on each cheek and embraced her tightly.

"Why are your eyes wet?" she asked me. "Are you hurted?"

"Because I love my gift, and because I'll never have a beautiful child like you," I said, blinking hard.

Lyrien's hair was curled for the wedding, but it was her mum who did the job this time. Galendur had to show her how, and it did start quite a trend among the younger set, which did not endear him much to their mothers.

Ríannor's mosaic was eventually set in a small wall beside the White Tree. There was talk of setting it in the Temple, but I protested that I did not want to be made a deity, it wouldn't be right somehow. There was quite a ceremony when it was done, with much food and drink and music, and the whole time I felt like going off and hiding somewhere until it was over, yet on the whole we all had a wonderful time even when a youngster asked me if when I died, would I be buried there. Gandalf had come and asked me if I thought he really looked his best in blue, and I told him I thought he would look striking in red. _Striking_, he said, and looked very thoughtful. And he turned up at the ceremony in a robe of deep red, and yes, he did indeed look very striking, and Ríannor seemed not to want to let him out of her sight.


	9. A New Home

Part IX: A New Home

I had been at the house of Lord Elrond for almost a year when Estë pronounced me cured.

"You have made a splendid recovery," she told me smiling. "You may be proud that you were such a good patient, and did as you were told so diligently, although I know it must have been very tiresome for you at whiles."

"Well…I wasn't _always _so good," I said ducking my head, thinking how Gandalf and Bilbo would have slapped their thighs if they had been present. "I imagine sometimes I must have been…rather difficult."

She laughed a little. "Then you must be of stern stuff indeed. But, in order to retain your healing to the fullest extent, you must continue to work at it. You are being given a house of your own, and you must keep it up. The work will not be very hard, and you will have all the help you need. Of course, you are welcome to live with the family of Elrond if you wish, but if you so choose, you will not reach the highest pinnacle of health and happiness of which you are capable. I think you will very much like the place. It is a beautiful spot near the shore, not far from the City. Is there anything else you wish for?"

"Peace," I said, "although, truly, I _am _at peace now."

"Anything else?" she asked with raised eyebrows.

"Well," I thought for a moment, "those orange-fruits, may I have some seeds or cuttings so I might plant some trees around the house?"

She burst into a peal of quite lovely laughter. "There is a veritable grove of them already there, and they bear fruit all year round. You shall have all you want. Is there nothing else you could ask?"

I thought hard. "I would like a pony and cart so I can go to the Temple at least once a week. It might be too great a distance for Bilbo to walk."

"Consider it done," she said, smiling, about what, I could not guess. "But surely there is some other thing you could wish, or should I not ask?"

"I doubt even the Valar could supply it," I said looking out the window and hoped she would not ask what it was. Recently I had been getting a certain visitor to my dreams. I would be in the bath, and notice a goldfish swimming in the tub, one of quite uncommon beauty and grace, and when I tried to catch it, it eluded me, but after the third time it was mine, and it turned into a lovely girl just my size, with rippling hair of dark gold and large violet eyes, a red smiling mouth, and a figure of perfect dainty proportions. She would laugh and splash me when I sat gazing at her, then stand in the water with her thin silvery gown clinging wetly, and bend down to me, her hair dripping warmly on my face, and I would feel her lips touch my brow and then my eyelids, my lips and then my shoulders…. I told no one about her, of course. I thought of her as a gift, my own sweet secret, and was grateful that Bilbo was such a deep sleeper when I woke from the dreams with a cry of joy. I was content with the dream, but a little worried that once I had moved out of Elrond's house, she might not follow….

But it seemed absurd to ask for a dream, so I did not.

Meanwhile, much had happened. Lady Galadriel was made queen of the Island. That was my doing, or so I was told. There was a council meeting in which I was included, and I was asked whom I thought should rule the Island. And I answered right up without even really thinking. If I'd had a little more time to think, I might have said Gandalf—or Olórin as he was named here, but to me he was always Gandalf-but deep down I knew he didn't want the position. And there were no other nominees, so there we were with the Lady, who, I knew wished to be Queen, also. The coronation was held—naturally—by the White Tree, and Gandalf did the crowning, and I handed the crown to him. It was a little eerie, yet thrilling. I had been asked to write a poem for the occasion, and so I did, but it was Lord Elrond who read it aloud, since his voice carried much better than mine in the crowd. I found it strange and sad she should be standing up there with no King beside her…but he would come, someday.

It was strange, also, with that mosaic behind her. Eventually there would be another alongside of it, and the background would be day-sky blue with a garden of flowers, and the head would be looking toward the other, and the hair would be sand-gold and the eyes would be brown and the garment of red …but that would not be for a very long time yet, either.

The Queen moved into the Royal Palace, which was in the middle of the city high on a hill, and Lord Elrond and his family moved in also, and his old house was given to Gandalf. Lady Ríannor would stay at the palace also, until she had learned to live in the Light, and I could make a pretty fair guess where she would be living once that came about. I was welcome to live there as well, and should regard myself as a member of the family. In fact, since the House of Elrond was now considered the Royal Family, I was made a prince, without even being asked if I wanted to be one. It was an honor that took my breath away, although I would be lying if I said the idea was without a certain appeal. I remembered how Pippin had told me he was reckoned a prince when he was first brought to Minas Tirith, but now I was a prince in reality, and I wondered what he would have said to that.

However, although I was officially a Prince, I need not live as one-I might have declined the conferral otherwise. I could continue to dress as a hobbit, and dwell with Bilbo in the small house that was being awarded to me. Admittedly, the Palace was a place of untold splendors, which made the Hall of Kings look trifling by comparison. But it was just a bit _too _splendid. And when I saw my new home, I fell completely in love.

It was situated by a cove with several waterfalls of varying sizes, amid palm-trees and flowering vines and bushes. These were inhabited by birds the like of which I had never seen before, of gem-like colors and long curving tails and fluffy crests and ruffs, and there were swans on the cove and ibises and flamingoes, and hummingbirds among the flowers, and perfectly amazing butterflies and fascinating insects and fishes. And dazzling rock formations and cliffs, and behind the waterfalls, I would find were caves that rivaled the fabled Helm's Deep caverns. The house overlooked this cove and afforded a view of the beach as well. It had belonged to a wealthy Elf who was an official in the City. He had donated it to us, and said we might stay there as long as we lived. It was, of course, made to accommodate big folk, but furniture had been made of a size to suit Bilbo and me, although there was also furniture for big people as well, and a guest room for any visitors we cared to invite. It had a thatched roof and a terrace out front as wide as the entire house, and yes, the grove of orange-trees and date-palms out back, along with a sizable garden and small vineyard, and a little spring-house in front, atop the small spring that would supply our water. I still maintain that it is the most enchanting spot on the entire Island!

After we were moved in, of course I could hardly wait to explore my new surroundings. Bilbo was not up to that, so Gandalf kept him company on the terrace while Galendur took me on a tour of the end of the Island. He didn't know all of it, himself, but he had seen much of it, and he had a boat in which we could go exploring the caves behind the waterfalls. He and Tilwen had a small house on the edge of the City, not far from ours.

"Now don't you go getting my boy lost in those caves," Bilbo told him the first time Galendur came to fetch me to go exploring. "Or you'll have Bilbo Baggins to answer to, young fellow." He waved his cane in the air for emphasis. Galendur laughed good-naturedly.

"Til would beat you to it, I'm sure," he said. "She thinks young Baggins here hung the moon. Makes me bloody jealous sometimes."

"You mean, he didn't?" Bilbo said and Gandalf and Galendur and I laughed out loud. It tickled me how plainly Galendur was dressed now. A grey tunic over a simple white shirt and grey leggings, and sturdy boots formed his usual outfit now, his only concession to fancy dress being a beautifully tooled leather belt, and he had trimmed his hair to just above shoulder length. Even for an Elf he was handsome, and I hadn't even found him attractive at our first meeting, just silly and overdone. He only dressed to the nines for formal occasions any more. And much as he enjoyed playing the courtier now and then, I think he preferred plain living on the whole.

"I've cast off my fine feathers," he informed me when I commented. "People on the Island just aren't impressed by that sort of thing, you know? They have this peculiar fixation on what's on the inside of you, as opposed to what's on the outside. It's taken a good deal of getting used to, but I think I'm slowly getting the hang of it, even though I'm half mortal and not always so quick on the uptake."

"Well, I think you've done a splendid job arranging the inside of you," I said as we stepped down into his boat. He had helped me to build a hobbit-sized boat, but as it was rather a tight squeeze for him, we were taking his.

"Really now. You didn't much like me the first time you met me, now did you, Baggins?" This being what he called me now, for he found the name amusing, and I was not annoyed by it.

"Couldn't bear you, if you must know," I said cheerily. "But you grew on me rather quickly."

"Like moss?"

"Yes," I laughed. "Like moss."

"Or slime, perhaps?" He gave me a wink.

"Yes, that's it exactly. Slime." Our laughter echoed in the cave walls. It was a bit cold inside, so we took our cloaks. A lantern sat between us in the boat. He sat in back so that I didn't have to lean over to see around him.

I'd told him about my original plans for the poem, about how I'd had him taking down a mumak single-handedly and all that. He looked at me in complete astonishment, then laughed so hard tears came out of his eyes, and I laughed too until I nearly wet myself, and he told me I was the world's absolute limit and he knew we were going to be great friends. I enjoyed his company immensely. He had a crazy sense of humor that was by turns childish, witty, bawdy, or just plain silly. He was a natural-born dare-devil and show-off, and regularly performed in the City for the entertainment of the younger folks, stunt-riding on his horse, leaping hurdles, popping out candle-flames with a whip, or rope tricks—he could do amazing things with a bit of rope, make a huge loop and spin it around and around and jump through it, throw it around unlikely objects…not the least of which was a whale, a rather small one, which I named Flossy, who inhabited the water near the white cliffs a ways from my cove. He and I figured how to train dolphins and whales to perform tricks as well. I would stand on a rock that jutted up out of the water and hold up a fish, and Flossy would leap upwards and he would toss the rope-harness he had fashioned around her, and I would throw the fish in the air and the whale would fly right up and catch the fish with Galendur standing on her back. Once, quite unexpectedly, he came up and snatched me off the rock, and we rode Flossy together, she sometimes leaping very high indeed, while the children on the shore jumped up and down and cheered in delirious excitement.

Sometimes Tilwen's brother-in-law, Seragon, joined us. He was as unlike Galendur as could be, a serious and arty fellow who took great pleasure in writing down his opinion of people's artworks, writing comments that were often disparaging in the extreme, so that I decided not to show him my poetry even after Galendur bragged on it most enthusiastically. What could be the point of writing such reports, I could not begin to imagine, but Seragon took this activity very seriously indeed. He made observations that were completely beyond me, dealing with "perspective" and "spatial organization" and what not. He was constantly drawing analogies between natural wonders and the human condition—the caves, for example, symbolized "the untold potentiality of the infinite riches of the soul"; then he would look at me in great earnest and say, "Think you could use that in a poem?"

"He's do-lally," Galendur said to me with a wink after Seragon turned home. "No harm in him though. Just full of hot air. Although I imagine the same has been said of me. But do you know what? When he got a load of that mosaic in the town-square, he was rendered as speechless as everybody else at the sight of it. I don't think he's ever written one damned word about it. Isn't that corking?"

Galendur challenged Lord Elrond one day, at the arena, to a sparring-match—there was a sports center in the City, consisting of a race-track, a playing-field, and an arena indoors. We went quite often.

"He has style, doesn't he?" I said as I watched Galendur and Elrond in the arena. Both Elves seemed to take themselves very seriously, moving with feline grace and agility that I envied a little.

"Your loyalty should be with Lord Elrond, my lad," Bilbo told me sternly. "Not with that young upstart. Did anyone ever hear the like?"

"Lord Elrond has a good form," I said impishly, "but his technique is hopelessly out of date. Galendur could teach him a few things."

Bilbo snorted, shaking his head. "Young folks these days," he said, "they think they know everything. Now, when I was a lad—"

He broke off as Lord Elrond took quite a hit and Tilwen tossed a little bouquet to her husband and the rest of the spectators broke into cheers. Lyrien, wedged up between me and her mum, bounced up and down in her seat, blowing kisses to her uncle with both hands. Elrond stood up graciously and shook hands with Galendur, and took some lessons from him after that.

As did Ríannor. She learned very quickly, and was enthralling to watch, like a dancer, full of fire and grace and rhythm. Gandalf could hardly get enough of watching her. Nor could I.

One day he seemed troubled in his mind as we sat out on the beach smoking late one evening, Bilbo having long since gone to bed.

"I'm feeling guilty," he confessed, "as if I had no right to approach her. It was you who led her into the Light, while I did nothing at all. I couldn't get past the fact that she had supported Sauron, was in part responsible for his rise to power. I know he would have risen without any help from her, but the fact that she actually did ally herself with him…yes, she did it to advance her son, but still. And she would have been responsible for the death of Isildur, if someone else had not gotten to him ahead of her, and she so often infuriated her enemies that they were provoked into declaring war, causing untold carnage….Well, I could only keep my distance. But despite everything Sauron did to you, you looked beyond it. I saw only what she had been; you saw what she could be."

"I didn't lead her into the Light," I said digging a toe into the sand, letting a wave wash over my foot. "It was Lady Galadriel and Lady Elwing who did most of that. And Lord Elrond, I'm sure. I gave her a little encouragement is all. I certainly didn't help her find the Door."

"Yet creating your portrait brought her to it," Gandalf said. "And I did nothing at all. It hardly seems fair to you."

"Nothing at all?" I looked incredulously at him. "Gandalf, how can you say that? You gave hundreds of years of your life to save Middle-Earth. I don't think there's anyone who did more than you did. Surely you are entitled to some happiness, after all that?"

There was some tiny part of me that might have agreed with him, at an earlier time and different place. A part that might have risen in bitterness saying _yes, it is unfair. It was I who stood by her, who encouraged her and believed in her, who loved her and did whatever he could to guide her out of the Shadow, while you only sat judgment and kept your distance. Yes, it is unfair that she should now think of you as a lover and me only as a friend, simply because of a height difference…. _But that part of me was left far behind in shadow. And so the words would never form even in my mind, but only in the mind of that tiny lost part. And I had a strong feeling that if he could hear them at all, he would continue to keep his distance from her, and they both would be lost to the happiness they should have been able to enjoy, and my own actions in their behalf would have been rendered pointless.

"I know you feel responsible for me," I said watching a night-bird wheeling about the white cliffs in the moonlight. "As do Bilbo and Lord Elrond. But I feel responsible for you too, and if you don't take what gifts are given, then I'll feel once more that I can do nothing right, and I cannot please my friends and am a sorry excuse for a Prince. Would you wish that for me?"

"Ah Frodo," Gandalf laughed a little as he grazed his hand across the back of my neck, "my sweet, wise hobbit. Will you ever stop surprising me? What am I going to do when you're gone?"

"I've been thinking the same about Bilbo," I said. I regretted saying it as soon as the words were out, but they had to come sooner or later. I moved closer to him and leaned my head on his shoulder. "He's slowing down, Gandalf. I'm starting to see it now. Sometimes I think I'm neglecting him, running off exploring, and boating, and all the rest of it, leaving him behind on the terrace. Yes, it's what he wants, I know. He wants me to go out and have good times with my friends and be happy. He's told me so over and over. But I think he hasn't much time left, and I should be better company."

We sat in silence as the sun sank into the softly rocking waves before us, turning them to scarlet and purple.


	10. End of the Race

Part X: End of the Race

We had been on the Island a little over two years, I think. I was never quite sure, for there came a time when I stopped keeping track of the days. The seasons never changed here. There was a time when I did not think I would have liked that. Back in the Shire, in better times, I had loved to see the changing of the seasons. But after the Quest, I found myself dreading the pain and illness that the spring and autumn would bring. Here on the Island the flowers and fruit bloomed all year long, and it was never either too cold nor too hot, and there was only the occasional mild storm, which brought rather exciting shows of lightning out on the sea.

Once a week an Elf would come bringing us a jug of cream, a pot of butter and a wheel of cheese which I stored in our little spring-house. I would trade him abasket of oranges or a bucket of raisins for it, for his wife liked to bake with them, or maybe a couple of loaves or a cake I had baked myself. When my vineyard ripened a small team of Elves came to help me harvest the grapes, taking no more payment than a bottle of wine or a jar of honey at my insistence. Children showered me with gifts: flowers, sea-shells, pretty stones, things of their own making. Naturally, they pumped me for stories, but I liked better to join them in their games on the beach. It should have been a happy time, and on the whole it was, but for my anxiety about Bilbo and a certain vague longing that would not go away. I missed living in the House of Elrond sometimes, and rarely got out to the Palace, and so I saw the Ladies only at the Temple.

"Bilbo, what is it?" I asked him one night after supper as we sat out on the terrace watching the sun go down and lighting our pipes. I noticed he had taken but one puff of his, and he had not spoken much at all. And I braced myself for what I had been dreading for nearly a year. I went to his long chair and dropped down to one knee beside him, taking his hand in mine. He looked at me then, with infinite sadness and love mingled, and I held his hand to my cheek for a long moment.

"You want to go, don't you?" I said finally—forcing myself to say it. My insides were quivering. I prayed I was wrong. Or that he would snap out of it, change his mind, anything.

"I'm tired, it's true," he said. "This old body keeps telling me: 'All right, Bilbo, you've reached your goal and outlived the Old Took, now it's time to quit,' and my stubborn old head is telling it: 'I'll quit when I'm good and ready, not before, thank you very much.' Just a constant bicker betwixt the two. I don't want to go off and leave you all alone here, lad, with no one of your own kind. Dreading the very thought of it, I am. But I don't know how much longer I can keep up. I know it's got to be sooner or later…but I'm just having a hard time to bring myself."

I knew what the right thing, the unselfish thing, to say was, but I just could not make myself say it. Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow. But not tonight. I needed more time to prepare myself. Although, of course, I should have prepared myself long before this, and deep down, I knew I would never really be prepared.

Finally Bilbo took himself off to bed, and I tucked him in and said I would go out for a bit. I kissed his forehead and went down to the beach to my favorite spot, and sat for I don't know how long, listening to the roar of the tide. Sometimes, if I sat still and listened long enough, I would begin to hear the Music, which came from the heart of the sea and was like no other music I had ever heard. Hearing the Music was no easy matter. You didn't hear it by listening for it and expecting it, but you had to be open to it, and of a certain accepting and detached frame of mind, and then when you least expected it, it would come to you unbidden, rather like a kitten that would not come when you called it, but only when you appeared to forget about it. I believe it sounded different for every person, and maybe it came from inside after all. But I did not listen for it tonight. Instead, I prayed. I prayed for more time for Bilbo and more strength for myself.

And a few minutes later, I heard a step behind me.

"Baggins? You all right, old chap?"

"Bilbo," I said in the morning as I laid out our breakfast on the terrace, "what do you think? Galendur has challenged Gandalf to a horse race—tonight! Can you imagine?"

Bilbo jerked his head up and the most amazing change came over his face. It was as though a candle that had been just about to flicker out completely had suddenly flamed back into life.

"You don't say?"

"Yes, I do. He actually thinks his horse can beat Shadowfax! I guess he's got a huge surprise coming, what?"

"Why, I never heard such cheek in all my life," cried my uncle. "That young whipper-sn—of all the—well, we'll just have to go and see that, now won't we? Yes, sir. That we must see. When do you say it is?"

And instead of picking at his breakfast as he had been doing for the past few weeks, he dived right in and cleaned his plate, then asked for more. And spent the whole afternoon getting himself up to "go see that young rascal get put in his place once and for all." Oh, this should be good. Thought he could beat Shadowfax, did he? Oi! Just wait!

He was in capital spirits as we rode into town in our pony-cart, and my own mood rose as well. Actually there were several roads we could take, and when we rode to Temple, we usually alternated amongst them. One road went through a meadow full of flowers of every possible color and graceful grasses of green and gold and silver and dark red. Another took us through a deep wood resonating with birdsong and mysterious dimness, another past some rock formations of fascinating intricacy, glittering, twisted, splotched, jagged, towering. And one alongside a rushing mill-stream full of singing cataracts, and trees of incredible height, and a rainbow that always shimmered over the water on sunny days. I drove through the meadow today, so we could pick flowers to make a wreath for the winning horse.

There was quite a crowd at the track. It certainly hadn't taken long for word to get around. Galendur was in fine form, grinning at everyone, gallantly saluting the ladies and children, slapping the men on the back and being as hearty as you please. I could hardly believe the audacity of him, myself, as he came running as we pulled up and helped us down from the cart. Bilbo cheerfully informed him that he was about to get trounced.

"Am I? Well, we'll soon see, won't we, old chap?" Galendur slapped me on the back, nearly knocking me over. Bilbo shook his head, no doubt thinking the fellow had clearly gone round the bend. Then we heard a collective gasp as Gandalf appeared riding Shadowfax.

Maegfán, Lady Galadriel's white palfrey, had recently dropped a beautiful little filly, pure white with silver mane and tail, and she was now the property of Lady Ríannor. Of course, she was nowhere near old enough to ride yet, but Ríannor was thoroughly devoted to the little creature, whose name was Silverdance. Ríannor was riding on Maegfán now, and Silverdance trotted right between her parents, sometimes frisking on ahead of them, then stopping and looking back waiting for them to catch up, looking a trifle impatient with their staidness. At one point she rolled around in the grass like a little puppy-dog, to the delight of the crowd, and I could swear Shadowfax looked at her with infinite pride and joy.

"Now isn't that something," Galendur chuckled. "Regular family affair, what? Adorable! Now mind, Baggins, I don't expect you two to be rooting for me."

"Small danger of that," Bilbo said with a wink in my direction.

"It's enough you're here," Galendur said. "That's what counts."

"Of course," I said grinning.

We took our place in the stands. There was more cheering as the Queen and her family appeared with their entourage, stepping out of the royal carriage, and they were escorted to their special box, summoning us to come sit with them. I politely thanked them and said we wished to sit out front, along with Tilwen and Seragon and Niniel and little Lyrien, who had once more had her hair squiggled for the occasion, and was skipping about like a lamb who does not know that slaughter is imminent, making delighted comments over the antics of Silverdance. A small band formed of drum, flute, bagpipe, and viol, played lively music. There was some pre-race foolery, two Elves dressed as a white horse with black spots racing with two more dressed as a black horse with white spots, and at the end of that race, the two "horses" danced with each other on their hinder-legs. It went over wonderfully with the children, and even Bilbo enjoyed it, although I think he was rather impatient for the real race to begin.

I had to admit, Galendur cut the most dashing figure…but, Shadowfax was still Shadowfax. And Gandalf was no slouch himself. I could see him looking in Ríannor's direction, and I could only hope he wouldn't be too distracted by her to ride his best. The two riders shook hands, lined up at the starting point, where an Elven-youth with a little flag was standing. A trumpet was blown, the little flag was raised then lowered with a snapping motion, and they were off!

I noticed that Nightwind was not saddled this time, although Galendur usually rode with one. I suppose since Shadowfax was never saddled, it would be a shame to use one for the race. I hoped he'd had some practice riding bare-back, but it did not look as though he were having much trouble. I can hardly describe the thrill I felt as the coal-black horse and the silver-white horse bounded along side-by-side past the roaring crowd. I found myself not really caring which of them won. The sheer primal power and energy and grace and urgency of the two magnificent animals filled me with such surging wonder, that I felt a new connection to the Divine. Seragon commented later that it was as if two opposing forces, such as Power and Reason, were struggling for eminence, at odds with each other yet of equal magnitude in the grand scheme of things. He didn't say which horse represented which, however.

I had to admit, a very similar idea had occurred to me as well.

And then it looked as though Nightwind were in the lead. I rubbed my eyes and looked again, glanced at Bilbo, who looked regally dismayed, and he stood up in the stands and shouted at Shadowfax to pick up his feet, blast him! Lyrien jumped up too, but she was cheering Nightwind on, her curls bouncing, and she screamed at us, "He's WINNING, I KNEW HE'D WIN, WHEEEEE!" Tilwen, who had looked less than enthused earlier, as though she knew her husband would end up making a colossal fool of himself, was standing also, and soon her sister alongside of her, and even Seragon forgot to be weighty and cheered right along with them. And Bilbo shouted once more and I caught myself shouting with him, even after I had resolved to remain neutral.

And soon Shadowfax caught up, and yes, outstripped the dark horse…and oh yes, surpassed him indeed…I think Gandalf had let Nightwind get ahead of him on purpose, just so he could make it all the more dramatic when he left him in the dust. Galendur kicked his mount in the sides and stuck out his elbows in a manner I thought looked rather silly, I knew he was a much better horseman than that! and Shadowfax left him far behind, and the stands went crazy as the silver horse thundered over the finish-line, leaving his opponent almost fifty feet behind.

Bilbo was cheering the hardest of anybody, slapping me on the back so hard I nearly fell forward on the stands. I felt badly for Tilwen and Lyrien, who were looking so dismayed and disappointed, and I put an arm around the little one and kissed her cheek and gave her the prettiest flower from our wreath, and she brightened. Galendur dismounted and went to shake hands with Gandalf, and the crowd cheered once more, and as Gandalf came near the royal box, Ríannor threw a bouquet of roses to him. Golden roses.

"It was a nice race, even if Nightwind didn't win," Lyrien said grinning at me, after a while. "Shadowfax is corking, isn't he?"

"Stop sounding like your uncle," Niniel said, then she laughed and so did I. Bilbo was in such grand form, I felt like shaking Galendur's hand for losing.

And he stayed so for weeks on end, and talked about it until, under other circumstances, I might have grown sick of the subject. But I let him gloat and chuckle as much as he pleased.

"I hope that teaches you a lesson, you brazen whelp," he said to Galendur when he came over the day after the race. "Never trifle with the Lord of all Horses. Hah!"

"Why _did _you challenge Gand—Olórin, anyway?" I couldn't resist asking as Galendur sprawled gracefully on the terrace steps. "Surely you must have heard of the reputation of Shadowfax?"

"Wanted to see what it was like to lose for a change," he said giving me an upward slap on the back of my head-this being his favorite gesture of affection toward me. "Gets bloody tiresome winning _all_ the time, what? Must say, I don't like the taste of losing, though. No more does Nightwind. He gave me a swift kick in the arse after the race. I won't try it again."

I didn't believe him for a minute, but I let it go. Then suddenly I knew, without knowing how I knew, why he had done it, and I loved him for it, and smiled hugely to myself, careful not to let him see my face. And it was half a year before Bilbo began slowing down again, and I knew that this time, there would be no turning back.

It was a beautiful afternoon…well, all afternoons were beautiful really, but this one seemed exceptionally so. The birds seemed in unusually fine form. I could hear one with a singularly haunting and bell-like tone, echoing richly off the cliffs…and I didn't have to listen hard to hear the water singing. The air was fine and delicate, butterflies hovering over the flowering vines that twined over the columns of our terrace. Bilbo, from his long chair, called me to his side once more, and I knew the moment I had been dreading had come at last.

I knelt beside him on the stone floor and he took my hand in both his and just sat holding it and caressing it for a while. I leaned my head on his shoulder and he stroked my hair and kissed the top of my head.

"Frodo-lad. My beautiful boy," he said. "I've no more regrets. I've seen you grow well and strong and happy again. You've no idea what that's done for my old heart, to see the sun come up in you once more, where once there was mostly grey clouds and rain with only a rare gleam of sunlight that didn't last near long enough. If I just didn't have to leave you here….Yes, I know you won't be alone really. Everybody loves you. They'd do anything for you. It's silly of me to worry, you're not a child after all. I just wish…that it was Samwise that was going to be here to look out for you…instead of that Galendur fellow. You'd do better to stick with, with Seragon, for instance. A steady and responsible sort of chap like that."

I laughed shakily. "Seragon? Well, he is all that, and quite smart I suppose, and the father of the sweetest little girl in the world…but, really he's just a bit boring sometimes, don't you think?"

"Hmph. That popinjay has turned your head, he has. Warped your sense of values, if that's what you think. Boring, hah!"

I decided I'd better tell him what I knew. I couldn't let him go out thinking so badly of Galendur.

"Uncle dearest," I said, "let me tell you something. He knew he'd lose that race."

Bilbo snorted a bit. "Say what?"

"He knew it from the beginning. He did it for you. He wanted to give you a big thrill and lift your spirits. That's why he challenged Gandalf. It was all for you, Uncle."

"He told you that, did he?" Bilbo sat up a little.

"No, he didn't. And if I asked him, he'd probably deny it. I just figured it out for myself. I think he wanted to give you the incentive to live a while longer. And you did. So you see, it worked. He let himself look a fool. He did it for us."

"Come on now. You mean to tell me…"

I surprised myself by smiling. "You don't have to worry about anyone looking out for me. So if you must go, you can go in peace. I'm prepared now. You see?"

"You really think that." Bilbo sank back in the chair among the cushions. "Well, I never. So. Guess I was right in the first place. You won't lack for friends, after all. And that young…who'd have ever thought it?"

"Guess marriage agrees with him," I grinned. "Tilwen brought out the best in him."

Bilbo laid a hand against my cheek. "I would say it was you that brought out the best in him, my lad," he said barely above a whisper.

"Well, maybe we both did," I said, blinking back tears as I laid my hand over his. Through the tears I could see a butterfly fluttering quite close. It was quite large, bronze colored with green and gold and blue spots and streaks. Bilbo weakly put his free hand toward it, and it perched on his finger. It was no uncommon thing for butterflies here to come to you when you willed them.

"Look at that," he said. I looked, and tears spilled over and he gently wiped them away with his fingers. "I leave you in good hands, my lad. I'm at peace now. And I think…maybe there's someone else awaits you…maybe it's my old head playing tricks on me, but I thought I saw…." His voice trailed off and the butterfly fluttered away but stayed close by.

"Saw what, Uncle?"

He shook his head, closing his eyes, then pulled me close to him one more time.

"My Prince," he whispered. Those were his last words.


	11. Namarië Bilbo

Part XI: Namarië Bilbo

It is strange to live in a land where there are no graveyards.

Bilbo was buried in a vault within the Palace. It was a round room with six narrow pointed windows. Candles were kept burning, and fresh flowers placed there every day. Ríannor had made some beautiful pottery and set it all around; one was a huge vase painted with a dragon, which I think he would have liked very much. Many other people brought things they made: small sculptures, drawings and paintings, poems beautifully copied and illuminated on vellum, wood carvings, glass-works, carved scented candles, finely crafted lamps, embroidery, rugs, a small tapestry, a lacquered box set with gems. A retired swordsmith made a replica of Sting, which was laid on top of the stone casket—another touch he would have loved, I'm sure. Lyrien made a Bilbo doll and it was placed beneath the plate on the wall bearing his name. There were so many things, in fact, that the vault could not accommodate them all, so some were given to my keeping.

Lady Celebrían made a book of Bilbo's and my poems, binding it in soft white tooled leather with a gold silk bookmark. She had even drawn some pictures, some of him alone and others of him and me together, and she made smaller copies of them for the book. There were some tributes in it written by members of her family, and even a piece from Seragon, who described my uncle as "an illustrious exemplar of the greatness of littleness." Once I might have found it rather sententious, but it eventually became one of my favorite readings from the book, and I couldn't help but wonder what he would write about me. She had left a good many blank pages so that more could be added. When I passed, the book would go to the City library, at my request.

Many of the Island's inhabitants had never attended a funeral, and I suppose they'd had to be instructed on how to conduct themselves. I would say that at least half the population turned out for it. I sat between Gandalf and Lord Elrond near the lectern at the Temple, and the Ladies played soft music and sang. Some of the priestesses danced to the music. I thought that rather strange, but found it was the way they had once honored fallen Elven warriors, and it was lovely to see. They wore plain dark gowns instead of the usual white robes embroidered with silver, and white flowers in their hair, and they held candles as they moved with solemn grace around the casket. I wondered if Bilbo could see it all, and what he would have had to say about it. Whether he would have been delighted, or would think it was all too much fol-de-rol for the likes of him.

Ah, don't confuse him with Sam, I thought. He would love it.

After the priest had commended my uncle's spirit to rest, he asked if anyone would like to come up and say anything. I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was, when the first speaker was Lyrien. She popped right up, holding a piece of paper, and stepped daintily to the lectern. Since she was too small to stand behind it, she stood in front, holding the paper in front of her. Her beautiful coppery hair was braided, instead of curled, this time, but she wore a few little white lilies in it.

"I was very fond of Mister Bilbo," she began, making sure to raise her voice so all could hear her. "He was nice and funny and told me lots of stories. He always smiled at me and called me 'poppet.' I liked that he was small like me even though he was grown up and old. And I liked his crinkly white hair, even on his feet. He loved Iorhael like his son and was very, very, very proud of him. He said he never expected to adopt the hobbit who saved the world. My best friend's brother, who thinks he knows everything, said Iorhael didn't save the whole world, just Middle-earth. But he did. Because it's like if one part of your body is very sick, like your heart, and the healer cures it, then he saves your whole body. Because if your heart doesn't get well, then your whole body just dies, yes? That's what my daddy said and I guess he's smarter than some boy."

This brought soft laughter as she beamed in Seragon's direction. I don't think I ever saw anyone look more proud of his offspring, not even Sam.

I would never laugh about him with Galendur, or anyone else, ever again.

"Mister Bilbo was sooo kind," she continued. "He had lots of money but he didn't keep it all for himself. He liked to give presents. Even though some people thought he was crazy and said mean things, he still liked to help people. There was a nasty creature called Gollum and Mister Bilbo didn't kill him when he had the chance, even though Gollum wanted to eat him when Mister Bilbo found his Precious. Mister Bilbo felt sorry for Gollum, you see. I want to be like Mister Bilbo and Iorhael. Because they proved that you can do very important things even if you are small. Iorhael has a friend called Sam who helped him save the world. He hopes that someday Sam will come to this Island. I'm going to pray every day that he will. That's all."

And instead of going back to sit with her parents, she came to me instead, and Elrond moved over to let her squeeze in between us. I put my arm around her and she took my handkerchief from my vest-pocket and dabbed at my face, then took my hand and held it in both hers. Gandalf arose then and took the lectern, clearing his throat.

"I couldn't do better than that if I tried for weeks, so I shan't try," he said smiling a little in our direction. "I will only say how thankful I am to have had a friend like Bilbo, and that I little dreamed the first day I appeared at his door, the entire course of history would be changed. I know now that it was Iluvatar who sent me there. I know now that being an instrument of good is never an easy thing, and often requires tremendous sacrifice. I know now that no action, however small, performed for the good of someone else, is ever wasted. We may think what we do does not matter, but I have come to find that _everything _we do matters, that kindness begets kindness, cruelty begets cruelty, mercy begets mercy, and even as this lovely child observed, to heal one part is to save the whole. We are where we are now because one small person showed pity to one who did not deserve it, gave an orphaned child a home, and taught another his letters and gave him employment. We are here because another certain small person treated his servant as an equal and learned and practiced what it was to be a friend, and yes, showed pity to one undeserving, following the example of his benefactor. And so I learned that in order to be great, one must first become small. One embraces the 'small' things that may be scorned as weakness and foolishness by those whose eyes are too far from the ground to see the enormity of them. One stoops to fix the broken wing of a bird, and ends up soaring with eagles. One extracts a tiny shard of poisoned metal from the heart of a small helpless creature, and ultimately topples the tower of an evil being. One bestows a mail-shirt of infinite value upon another, and the course of the future is changed forever. One gives a flower to a lost woman, and she expels her enemy and finds her way into the sunlight of divinity, and learns to do the same for others. I learned to stand my tallest by taking the bent, frail, ragged form of an elderly man leaning on a stick. And those who refused to become small and tried to make themselves huge, were ultimately cast down by their own striving. And so all our greatness issues from the seeds of littleness."

Galendur came next, but he made his speech short and to the point.

"Bilbo was a most jolly old chap, and although I didn't know him so well, I would say he must have really got something right. Because of him, I learned a thing or two myself: that heroes do come in more than one size, and there's more than one way of doing things. I don't say everyone should do them all the same, because that would get a trifle dullish, and some folks can do things quiet and simple and humble, while others can do them in grand style with a lot of hoopla, and still others can be all philosophical and make lofty observations about everything in sight. And all those ways might be good ways. Bilbo was one who started out small and worked his way up to big and then small again, and he ended raising up a fellow I am proud and honored to call my friend, whom I didn't deserve but got anyway. Young Baggins saw what I could be and pointed me in that direction without asking me to give up everything I already was. So I don't waste time blathering about what I do or don't deserve, just try and take care of what I've been given in my own way. And that's all I really wanted to say, so I'll shut my head now and let somebody else take the stand."

I had to smile then, and he grinned and nodded in my direction and Lyrien squeezed my hand. And then, although I had not thought to say anything and had begged to be excused, I found myself rising and going up to the lectern, although like Lyrien I had to stand in front of it.

"I had not planned to speak," I said, pressing my hands together, "but now I simply must. When I first came to the Island almost three years ago, I knew not what to expect. When we first hove into the harbor, I had a feeling that I was really home and I had done the right thing. I'd had dreams about coming here and they were not good dreams. I kept dreaming that everyone fled from my sight until I went mad from it all. I know now that those dreams were my Enemy's way of trying to keep me away, so that I would either die or go mad or both. I suppose they rose also from my own feelings of guilt and shame and disappointment in myself. And the Enemy used those against me. So, the first day of my arrival, those feelings were cast out of me, and I knew there was a greater Power than the Enemy at work, and that it was on this Island, and that sometimes it worked in ways I did not understand, but work it did. So I no longer question it. I am so grateful for the friends I have made. I have dreaded the day my uncle Bilbo would leave me, for in my heart I knew his time would not be much longer. I dreaded the thought of being the only hobbit and the only mortal in the land. I felt as though I would not want to live long after him. But I have been so embraced here, so surrounded, so purified and accepted and instructed, that I feel I will not be beaten down any longer, and I can go on. I thank all of you so much for coming here on this day, for I know you are here for my sake. I know my uncle is on the Other Side, and I am thankful that I am mortal and shall not have to wait all through the ages to join him once more. And I know he wishes me to stay here until my time is done. So I stay for as long as my body allows me, both for the sake of the great friend I hope will join me one day, and also for the sake of the dear friends I have made and will continue to make here."

I stayed at the Palace for about six weeks. Galendur promised to see to the upkeep of my house while I was gone, and told me to stay as long as I needed.

It was good to be back among them. I realized how much I had missed the Ladies, and in their presence I became as a child again, in the best way. Lady Celebrían, the domestic one, remembered all my favorite foods, saw to it that I had clean bed linen and that my clothes were washed and pressed, and that I got a hot bath when I wanted one. We spoke little to each other of the woundings that had brought us both to the Island. Our minds and hearts spoke of it so that words were unnecessary; the bond remained, and connected us irrevocably. Of all the Ladies she was the most like my mother, in disposition, at least—in appearance only her merry blue eyes were similar. She did finally speak of her daughter, referring to what I had said at Bilbo's funeral about not having to wait all through the ages. Elves, it seems, have a far different concept of time than mortals, and a year may seem like a week to them. Ten years may seem half a year, and a hundred years as ten…or such is the impression I have gotten. So, perhaps they eventually come to terms with having to wait what seems an eternity, and the fact that someday they will be rejoined with their loved ones is enough to sustain them through the ages. Not so with all of them, of course, but Lady Celebrian was one of the exceptionally strong ones—or she had been made so here, and would endure.

Lady Elwing, the spiritual one, kept me in touch with both the natural world and the Divine, and made me aware of the connection between the two, and her counsels set me on the road I must take in order to reach the highest point in my physical and mental healing. I think she somehow kept Lady Celebrían in contact with her daughter in some way also, not by magic as we know it, but by some sort of attunement to that higher Power.

One evening she bade me come to the shore with her, telling me to bring my glass. We stood looking at the evening star for several long minutes. It seemed unusually clear and bright, its image sparkling in gentle lightning on the water. She asked for the phial and I handed it to her with a questioning look, and she walked over to the water, bent and took the stopper out of the glass. I was about to protest, but something stopped my tongue, and she dipped her fingers into the water and let a few drops into the phial and replaced the stopper, speaking a soft singing chant over it. I think I heard both the names of Ulmo and Irmo in her voice. Then she handed it back to me smiling.

"Will it glow brighter now?" I asked, thinking I scarcely needed it brighter.

"It has more strength," she said with an enigmatic twinkle. "You will see. Watch and wait, pray and look ever outward." And we went back, she taking my hand, and I heard the harbor-bell swinging softly in the evening breeze that was as a scarf of fragrance easing my stiff cheeks.

Lady Ríannor, the artistic one, taught me the restorative properties of creativity, the marriage of beauty and ideas, ways of setting heart's blood in the form of language and images to make the senses dance. Our connection was powerful as well, having dealt with the same Enemy, although I was certain she remembered nothing about him. Her works of pottery that she had made before finding the Door were taken to an art museum in the City, a huge structure where you could wander for days and still not see everything there was to see. When we went to view them, she looked at me in puzzlement, saying, "They say I made them, but I do not remember doing so. I look at them and see a city of incompleteness and threats. Something that should have been buried but has arisen to the surface."

"Perhaps we should not look at them any longer," I said, and neither of us ever went back to that room, although we would visit the Museum often, it being a place of staggering wonders and delights, a small world of itself. The portrait of Arasirion was kept in the Palace, in one of the smaller salons. I saw her look at the painting a time or two, and a fleeting sadness darkened her face. She said she must have known him once, in a dim time, perhaps in a previous life. But in about five years or so, she would bear a son, and his name would be Arasirion also, and he would resemble the first Arasirion so strongly that it made chills run all over me when I watched him at play and in his moods. I had no belief in rebirth, myself, and the first Arasirion had resembled his mother, so why should not the second? Well! I did not know, and would never know until I passed into the next world. But she would look at the portrait with joy, and say, "A vision was given unto me. Yes, now I know from whence it came." We all let her think so. Maybe it was true, at that.

And Lady Galadriel, the ruler, taught me all things a prince must know in order to be the leader of both others and of his own fate. It came as something of a surprise that she asked for my counsel on some things. At first I thought she did it just to make me feel important. Surely she needed no advice from me? What could I do that an Elf couldn't do better? I wondered.

"Do you really think you've nothing to contribute?" she asked me smiling. "Believe it or not, I truly do not know everything. And you have thought of things that no one else did. It was you who proposed the idea that Sauron was using Ríannor's memories to keep her in darkness, and you were right, so that she was ultimately able to find her way out. In truth, I feel foolish for not having thought of it myself."

And at her suggestion, I visited the home for elflings orphaned in the War, and began to counsel some of them; for, since I had been orphaned at an early age myself, the Lady thought I might be able to reach them. I was afraid, at first, that the children would find it ridiculous to be counseled by a person no taller than they and shorter than most, and with hairy feet, at that, and once more I considered getting some boots. The Queen said it would not be necessary, however. I was a Prince and my image was in the town square next to the White Tree; they would have plenty of respect for me, she said.

And most did take to me quickly. I counseled a brother and sister together, who did not want to be separated even for an hour, and it went so well that I got the idea to counsel groups of children at a time. And so I went to the Home once or twice a week and held these group-meetings, and eventually began receiving reports of better appetites, fewer bad dreams, better school-work. I also conceived the idea of having the names of their parents carved on a wall as a memorial in the town-square. I suggested this to the Queen, and she held a meeting concerning the matter, and it was done. It took half a year, but people threw themselves whole-heartedly into the project, and three different stone-cutters were engaged, and the stone was of a black marble with a white veining. An eagle was carved into the middle of the wall, and a torch was kept burning atop. During the unveiling ceremony, the orphans stood gazing at the wall, their faces glowing as they each searched for the names of their parents. And I saw some of them look at me, grinning, as they pointed out one set of names, and I came and looked and saw they belonged to my own parents.

So my days were filled with such activity, that I had not much time to mourn, and I felt I was doing things that would have made Bilbo proud of me. But nights were another matter….


	12. Home Again

Part XII: Home Again

Nights, going into the bedroom to retire, and no kindly wrinkled face and twinkling eyes looking fondly at me as I told of the day's doings…no grandfatherly little figure sitting out on the balcony with me looking at the stars as we smoked our pipes and chatted and joked about whatever came up and tried to see who could make the best smoke-ring…no one beaming proudly over my accomplishments, however small they might be…no one to tuck in and kiss good-night, no comforting snores from his side of the room….

I was made doubly aware that I was alone, the last of my family had been torn from me. That I was, in fact, the only one on the Island now who would someday die. It was a very strange and overwhelming feeling, despite my brave words at the funeral, and even though if Someone were to come down and offer me the gift of immortality, I would not take it. But I could not imagine what the future held for me now. I could no longer feel joy in the mere presence of the Ladies. It was no longer enough just to be able to see and talk to them and move in their light and beauty and vibrancy. I was alone; no one would come after me, no one to beam at in pride and delight…it seemed everyone here had all that or would have, except me. What would I have? A house of my own, to be sure, and work I loved, and plenty of friends, and the promise that the dearest person on earth to me would someday join me…I should be content with that, I told myself, and once I had thought I could be so.

I admit crying myself to sleep at times. I rarely had bad dreams any more, and those I did have, were forgotten after waking. But on the second night after the funeral, I dreamed I saw Sam standing on the opposite bank of a wide stream. The water was full of bad music and steam and roaring, and I got into my boat to try and cross to him, but could not get it into the water. I shouted at him not to try to cross, but he waded into the water, and it swept him away screaming, and I cried out his name over and over, and saw Gollum standing in his place, taunting and pulling faces….

"Frodo, Frodo, wake up!" I felt a hand on my shoulder, shaking me into wakefulness. And I jerked awake, and saw Gandalf beside me, stooping down beside my bed, in the faint soft light of my glass. I gasped and sat up.

"Gandalf," I whispered, rubbing at my head, which ached a little. "I…I was dreaming," I said as if he couldn't have figured that out. "H-How long have you been here?"

"Not very long," he said. "I decided to come over and stay a few days. You won't mind terribly if I camp out in your room?" He indicated a long padded chair that stood beside my bed.

"Not at all," I said, and managed a little, grateful smile. "It's hard without him. I don't know if I'll ever get used to it."

"I know," he said. "But, for you, it will get better, eventually. I think it will not take as long for you, as it will for me, to get used to his absence and yours. I sometimes think when you are gone, the Island will be in perpetual twilight once more. But, enough of that. Shall we go sit out for a bit? The northern lights are especially beautiful tonight."

I slid out of bed and he fetched my robe from the back of a chair and put it around me, and we went out to the balcony. It afforded a view of the entire City, since the Palace was atop a small hill. I could see the street-lamps glowing everywhere, with haloes of soft color around them, golden domes glistening atop of buildings, windows full of light, trees shining greenly, streets in a soft white sheen like moonlight. I could see the White Tree stretching heavenward, catching some of the colors of the aurora, which was spattered in streaks of bright green intersected with flaming pink, dark red, pale blue and orange, fluffy clouds of light gold, zigzags of scarlet. And the sky above tinged with a crystal blue-green and the stars gleaming silver-blue and ice-white on the clear dark canopy. There was even a crescent moon, looming very large, and a big bright star was at one horn, gently pulsating.

I leaned on the rail of the balcony and rested my chin on my folded hands, gazing at the vast panorama before me. Gandalf stood behind me, one hand resting on my shoulder. Neither of us spoke. The beauty and wonder of the night was beyond words.

"Come, get dressed," Gandalf said finally. "Let's go out for a bit, shall we?"

It was a crazy idea; it must have been close to midnight. But I put on the clothes I had been wearing the previous day, and followed Gandalf out to the stable where Shadowfax stood still wide awake as though he were expecting us. Gandalf put me on the horse's back and then climbed up behind me, and we went out into the night, down the hill through the Palace gate, and out into the City of Light.

I had not been out in the City at night before, except early in the evening. There were restaurants and ball-rooms, taverns and galleries, theaters and concert-rooms, and many of them stayed open well until dawn. Gandalf left Shadowfax in the vast Garden of the town-square and we wandered about on foot. Street-bands played on many corners, and dancers and acrobats performed on the walks. We paused near the edge of the Gardens where a musician played a three-stringed fiddle and a young girl danced blind-folded among eggs that had been laid out at her feet. She was only a little taller than I and probably not so old, and she wore a short dress of blazing colors, and her night-black hair shimmered blue and purple in the glow of two street-lamps, with ribbons and beads worked into it. Her feet were bare as she stepped and capered and whirled with such nimble grace among the eggs, not so much as touching a one of them. The musician—her father, I thought—was in an odd-looking rakish suit of black and white patches with a scarlet cloak, and he played with such lilting spirit and gaiety that I felt like dancing right along with the maiden. If I'd had a couple of mugs of ale under my belt, I probably would have joined her, but I was not so bold, and figured with my great feet I'd probably make a horrid mess of the eggs and they wouldn't even be fit to make omelets.

When her dance was done the maiden stripped off her blindfold and curtseyed and blew kisses to the cheering small crowd. When she saw me and Gandalf, she positively glowed, and dropped to her knees before us. I was much taken aback, and after a moment remembered myself and reached a hand to raise her, and at my touch she looked up in wide-eyed delight. Her beauty nearly left me gasping, but I just told her how much I enjoyed her dance, and expressed my astonishment that she had not so much as moved an egg. She wore several bracelets, and she took off one of them and held it out to me. I hesitated, but Gandalf nodded to me that I must not refuse her gift, so I took it and thanked her with a big smile. It was a little gold band with a red stone, and I held it and looked at it a long time as we walked away.

"What sort are they?" I asked Gandalf after we were out of hearing distance.

"Dark-elves," he said. "Like Ríannor. I think the girl is a mute. They, too, were prisoners of Sauron. The fellow is her brother. I don't know their names."

I was dumbstruck, myself. Sauron had made prisoners of children? Then again, why should that have surprised me? I began feeling much better about myself.

"Surely something can be done for her," I said. "I shall take it up with the Queen and Lord Elrond. I think I will have her dance for my orphans, if she wants to. They would love it, I'm sure."

And we walked through the City streets, taking in all the sights and sounds and smells, talking with various Elves who liked to inhabit the City's night-life, exchanging opinions about the Mysteries of the Universe, singing, watching performers, tasting samples of sweet things, until finally we had had enough for one night, and turned back to the Garden to fetch Shadowfax. And I looked at the mosaic beside the Tree, and felt so put together, so alive, and so…so necessary. I was a Prince and this was my city, my domain, my meeting place. I felt (and I suppose I sound a bit like Seragon here) as though I were composed of fragments of richness and sorrow, broken up and assembled into patterns of startling light and color and glaze, a mosaic of myself. I was where and what I was meant to be, I was home and not alone. And once back in my room, I could feel Bilbo's presence, somewhere between the sleeping form of Gandalf and myself, his hand resting on my forehead as I settled into peaceful dreams.

When I had been at the Palace for nearly two months, I began to find that I was getting tired more easily, and had less appetite and vigor, and I knew it was time to go home.

I sent word by a page to Galendur that I was coming back; then the next day Gandalf and Elrond helped me pack my things. Lord Elrond and the Ladies crowded around as we made ready to leave early in the morning, and I wished I could tell them all that was in my heart but could find no words, and could only hope they would hear it without my telling them. I think they did. They told me to come visit any time I wished, and they would see me in the Temple soon. As we rode through the streets, a crowd of people lined them—word that I was leaving must have gotten around. Some of them gave me flowers and some gave me small baskets or jars of food. I saw my egg-dancer and pulled back my sleeve to show her the bracelet, and she smiled and threw me a kiss. As we came to the edge of the City, I took a last look back, smiled and waved to the crowd in as princely a manner as I could, then looked up at Gandalf over my shoulder.

"Bear me away!" I said dramatically.

It was good to see the cottage again. I could see flowers heaped on the terrace, bouquets of them set in jars, wreaths hung all about, garlands strung across the railing, garden-flowers and wild-flowers, inside the house as well, in every room. And in the main parlor, there was a banner that read WELCOME HOME, IORHAEL! in intricately decorated letters. There was food set all about, something cooking on the stove, even—mushroom soup! And a kettle hissing and dishes—a new set of them, Ríannor's work obviously, on the table, white ones with gold swirls and curlicues on the edges, gold roses painted on the cups and pitchers. Bottles of wine were set about. And I saw that baskets of oranges, dates and nuts had been set down in the fruit-cellar, along with bananas and pineapples and pomegranates, and more bottles of wine. The spring-house had been stocked as well. And garlands of flowers and palm-fronds had been draped around it too.

Even the peacock spread his fan for me. He had come to me after I moved here, for he didn't seem to want to go to the Palace and Gandalf found him annoying, and he seemed fond of me, so now he was mine. Shire-folk have roosters to awaken them in the morning; I had a peacock.

I had never felt so visible before.

And then I heard the sound of cheering. And some chatter and giggling, and then singing, as elflings began to appear, slipping out from behind trees and bushes and hedges and big rocks, dozens of them, some holding still more flowers, some wearing flowers in their curled hair, and more of them appeared and the singing grew louder:

_Welcome, welcome, welcome home_  
_Savior, Prince and friend_  
_We've missed you sore_  
_and hope you'll no more_  
_stay away so long again._

_Welcome, welcome, welcome home_  
_We are so thankful you are here_  
_There is none fairer_  
_than our Ring-bearer_  
_joy we wish you and much cheer!_

And I could see Tilwen and Galendur outside the circle of singing elflings, and Niniel and Seragon with Lyrien perched high on his shoulders wearing her prettiest dress, he holding her ankles as she waved wildly with both arms, then scrambled down and came running, fairly knocking me to the ground as she flung herself at me.

The celebration went on all day. There was clam-baking and fish-frying and dancing and games and races and singing and fireworks on the beach, and some of my orphans were there as well, and even the egg-girl turned up in the evening—seemed she did not like to come out much in the day-time. I fetched some of the eggs someone had left in the spring-house for her, and this time I joined her in her dance, though I was not blindfolded, and although I was a bit tipsy I only crushed two eggs. But when the music ended I deliberately stomped on several, just to give the smallest children an even bigger thrill.

As more and more stars came out, some of the older Elves indicated to the younger ones that I must be getting tired. Gandalf asked if I wanted him to stay with me. I thanked him and said I would manage, for I sensed he really wished to go with Ríannor, who was looking even lovelier than ever in a gown of cobalt-blue embroidered in silver-green. She would always wear dark colors, but they became her splendidly. She was as a queen of midnight, perched in the curve of a crescent moon with a star attached to one horn.

Long after the merry-makers had departed, I sat on the beach, not wishing to go in yet. Then I noticed something bulging in one pocket, and took out my glass. I remembered the night Lady Elwing had put a few drops of sea-water into the phial. _It is stronger now. Watch and wait and pray_. I looked at it for a long time, then I found myself talking to it once more.

"Sam," I said, "I wish I could see you just for a moment. What are you doing now? Something quite ordinary, I imagine. But I wish I could see. I can feel our hearts speak to each other in the night, can't you? I think I know the exact day Frodo-lad was born. I think you are mayor now. Imagine that: once I was mayor and you were a gardener; now I am a gardener and you are mayor. It's wonderful, truly. I wish I could see you now if only for a few minutes…."

And the phial began to glow goldenly, a faint pale light at first, but to my delight and wonder, it grew brighter. Then I made out a shape, vague and shadowy at first, and my breath seemed snatched away as the shape grew more distinct and large. I felt entranced as the air around me turned to gold and green and white, and I could see the shape of Sam, standing as though on another shore, holding a child with golden curls perched on his hip. I saw him point to something in the sky, and then I think he became aware of me, for his face changed in a way that is hard to describe. It filled with a sweet light and sunny beauty, and Elanor looked at him in wonder and spoke, probably asking what was happening. What a beautiful child, with round pink cheeks and large bright eyes; how proud he must be! I could see what a tremendous comfort she was to him. And he spoke. I could not hear, but I could make out the shape of his words. _It's Mister Frodo. He can see us now. He's watching. Can you feel it? _I saw her nod and smile and take on his light, and I felt deliriously sleepy. I fought for a few minutes to stay awake, not wishing to lose the vision, but it finally overcame me, and I slept.

I must have been asleep for quite a while, because I suddenly awoke to find myself being carried to the cottage. I thought it was Gandalf at first, then saw it was Galendur.

"All right, old chap?" he said. "You shouldn't fall asleep on the beach like that, you know. The tide was coming to snatch you away. I got a bit worried and came down to check up, and good thing. The water was licking your toes."

"In that case I must thank you," I said smiling. "I was having the loveliest dream. I dreamt I saw a dolphin leaping through the waves, and it turned into a beautiful maiden just my size."

"Oh damn," he said, "and I interrupted? But you'd have been permanently interrupted if I hadn't come along, you know."

"It's no matter," I said. "I was to the point where…where I always awaken." Is it possible to blush in the dark?

"Oh," he said knowingly, "so you, erm, clapped to, right in my arms and all? Do me a tremendous favor, old chap, and don't tell anyone, what? My reputation has taken enough of a pounding as it is."

I laughed so hard it hurt. It felt as though all the stars were laughing with me.

"You're daft," I said when I could get my breath. "You can put me down now. If anyone were to see you, your reputation would be in shards, and mine too."

"Almost here, and there's no one else about," he said as he mounted the terrace steps. "I say, you'll be sweeping up dead petals for two weeks after this." He reached up to brush a flower out of his hair as he took me inside. "Got that light of yours handy?"

I fetched it from my pocket. He set me down on a chair, found a nightshirt hanging on a hook and tossed it to me. I stood up and he helped me off with my vest and shirt, and I pulled the nightshirt on, covered myself with it and then slipped off my breeches as he turned down the bed-covers.

"Now let's tuck you in all nice and cozy like your mummy," he said as I got in and he spread the covers over me. "Must get in some practice, don't you know." He lifted his eyebrows significantly.

"You mean…" I looked up at him in delight as what he meant dawned on me.

"Precisely," he said and it seemed a soft glow suffused him all over. "Squinkles has ordered us to make it a boy, and to name him after you. I think the little wench fancies you."

"That's wonderful," I said smiling until I felt my face might split. "I think you'll make a corking dad."

"I bloody well hope so," he laughed. Then he looked down at me with eyes that were anything but steely as he slowly stood up. "I'll leave you to your dreams now. Perhaps your dolphin-girl will come back for second helpings. Probably she's perched on the reefs now, drumming her fingers and waiting for me to bugger off. Want me to kiss you good-night?"

"Oh please, no," I said in mock horror and he laughed uproariously.

"Very well then," he said. "I'll be in the big people's room if you need anything. Til is at her mum's, and I told her I'd be here, so that's all good and well. G'night, Ring-bearer…and thank you for everything."

"Thank _you_ for giving Bilbo more time," I said impishly. He looked at first as though he were going to pretend he didn't know what I meant, then grinned.

"My pleasure," he said. "Pleasant dreams, my dear Baggins. Your reward is coming very soon now, you know."

"I know," I said softly. And he and I smiled at each other as only two beings could smile who were both about to receive their heart's true desire.

After he went out, I smiled and dimmed the light to a soft glimmer and closed my eyes, waiting for sleep to come creeping up on me again. Although it was not likely that I would catch a wink, for I knew now that my dolphin-lady was no dream, and that she would be waiting for me in reality in the morning, running her fingers through her hair and humming, her eyes full of sunlight and mischievous joy.

***Finis***

Psst-for those who don't know, and are curious about the dolphin-lady, Frodo's story continues in "Anemone", which was written before this one, so unfortunately some of the characters who appear in "Bear Me Away!" are absent. Actually "Bear Me Away!" takes place between the first and second chapters of "Anemone", so there you have it! Thanks for reading! -Armariel

Disclaimer (or, stuff you already know but I put here anyway to keep the copyright nazis, whoever they may be, happy): All characters except the ones I created myself are borrowed from J.R.R. Tolkien, bless him, much as I'd like to keep some of them, and I don't make any money off my stories, which is why I'm broke all the time, I suppose. No Elves or Hobbits or dolphin-girls were harmed in the writing of this tale, although some of them suffered occasional bouts of angst, but mostly they got over it. Thanks to all those who read and especially to those who took the time to review!


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